Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Mecânica. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2007

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon Graduate Center, 1976.

Zugl.: Karlsruhe, Univ., Diss., 2009 / Hergestellt on demand. - Zusätzliches Online-Angebot unter http://uvka.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de/shop/isbn/978-3-86644-418-8

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 15, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Dr. Ping Yu. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

It is known that a phase-perturbed object field from a fractal-like rough surface illuminated by a partially coherent beam generates speckle on the image plane. In this works, aberration effects on Gaussian speckle on the image plane in both perfectly and partially coherent systems are theoretically and experimentally investigated. Theory shows that the second order statistics of Gaussian laser speckle are independent of odd-functional aberrations, but they do affect Gaussian speckle contrast in a partially coherent system. Furthermore, it is theoretically derived that field statistics of Gaussian laser speckle generally become non-circular Gaussian due to aberrations, and an aberration effect is asymptotically ignorable for very weak or strong roughness. A brute force simulation method is introduced for non-Gaussian speckle in a partially coherent imaging system, where speckle irradiance is calculated from a quasi-monochromatic extended incoherent source. The source is modeled as a collection of independent point sources distributed on a regular grid. The partially coherent speckle pattern is calculated from the incoherent sum of coherent speckle patterns in the image plane generated from each point source. Speckle contrasts from a brute force model show good agreement with theoretical and experimental results. It is determined that non-Gaussian speckle contrast is strongly dependent on Hurst exponent of fractal rough surfaces using brute force simulations. The concept of a contributing object area at a fixed image point effectively explains the speckle contrast dependency. Measuring spherical aberrations using Gaussian laser speckle is discussed as one of applications and future works of the present study.

Power transformers play an important role in electric networks. Copper windings wrapped in kraft paper and immersed in a tank of mineral oil are their main composition. Oil-impregnated paper is a very common insulator in power transforms, due to its durability and endurance. Kraft paper, a wood-based fiber from cellulose, can gradually degrade due to the ambient effects such as high-voltage electric field, temperature, and moisture in the normal working condition of transformers. Aged paper is more prone to experience electric breakdown which finally results in transformer failures. It is essential to monitor paper insulation condition. Conventional methods for evaluating kraft paper are mainly based on chemical analyses which require sampling of the surrounding oil and are usually time-consuming and expensive. Investigation on and classification of aged kraft paper with four different levels of thermal ageing using a potentially fast, simple, and inexpensive optical setup based on optical speckle is the main subject of this thesis. Speckle interference patterns from a laser diode source have been captured by a CCD camera. Classification based on textural features shows very good discrimination between ageing classes making this technique promising for industrial applications.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon Graduate Center, 1988.

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1990. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 135-143).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1996. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. [125]-135).

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1997. / Bibliography: leaves 151-161.