Efficient laser generation of Lamb waves.

We report about the efficient generation of Lamb waves for nondestructive testing (NDT) of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) with spatially formed laser beams. Therefore we describe the successful introduction of a liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS)-based spatial light modulator (SLM) to create predetermined spatial laser light distributions for a flexible Lamb wave excitation. We investigate the influence of the formed beam profiles of the generation laser to the resulting Lamb wave. The further objective of the study is the close adaptation of the laser-generated guided waves to a specific testing situation and an optimized defect evaluation.