Nearfield acoustic holography using a laser vibrometer and a light membrane

This paper deals with a measurement technique for planar nearfield acoustic holography (NAH) applications. The idea is to use a light tensionless membrane as a normal acoustic velocity sensor, whose response is measured by using a laser vibrometer. The main technical difficulty is that the used membrane must be optically reflective but acoustically transparent. The latter condition cannot be fully satisfied because of the membrane mass, which has to be minimized to reduce acoustic reflections. A mass correction operator is proposed in this work, based on a two-dimensional discrete Fourier transform of the membrane velocity field. An academic planar NAH experiment is finally reported, illustrating qualitatively and quantitatively the feasibility of the method and the pertinence of the mass correction operator.