In this article, a non-contact laser Doppler strain sensor designed for fatigue testing with the resonance-testing machine is presented. The compact sensor measures in-plane displacements simultaneously from two adjacent points using the principle of in-plane, laser-Doppler vibrometry. The strain is computed from the relative displacements divided by the distance between these two points. The optical design, the mathematical model for estimating noise-limited resolution, the simulation results of this model, and the first measurement results are presented. The comparison of the measurement results of our sensor with the results of a conventional strain gauge shows that our design meets the measurement requirements. The maximum strain deviation compared to conventional strain gauges of the laser-Doppler extensometer is below 4×10-5 in all performed experiments.
Keywords: dynamic strain measuring; in-plane laser Doppler vibrometry; remote sensing.