Introduction to Holographic Interferometry

Holographic interferometry is a method for recording and reconstructing three-dimensional images, which can be applied for the solution of strain analysis problems. Today this method, at least in its classical form, suffers from the way in which the interference fringes are recorded. Special photographic plates with high resolution are needed to record these images, together with accurate manipulation. This constraint has limited the industrial application of the method and oriented the research towards other optical interferometric methods that are less demanding in terms of equipments and experimental difficulties. Nevertheless, classic holographic interferometry offers an invaluable tool for the high accuracy and resolution required by very small displacements analysis. In the present book the classic method is presented in order to understand a special application to Fracture Mechanics for parameters identification in the case of interaction between two cracks.