An Optical Method for Nondestructive Testing of Light-Scattering Materials

Theoretical principles are considered for the nondestructive testing of light-scattering materials and articles by the optical method. As a rule, the following types of nonmetallic materials are classified as such substances: glasses, pyroceramics, polymers, polymer composite materials, foamed materials, rocks (marble, granite, agates, quartz, etc.), wood and its derivatives (paper, cardboard, plywood, etc.), various crystals, and semiconductor materials. The optical nondestructive testing methods are very important owing to their high sensitivity and possibility of being applied to a wide class of materials and articles. This paper presents the results of optical nondestructive testing of polymer composite materials. Most attention is concentrated on the study of the physical model that describes the process of optical nondestructive testing of light-scattering materials, the description of the model of detectability of defects, technical tools for nondestructive testing, and the results of applying optical techniques and facilities to the flaw detection in actual articles.