Shearography technology and applications: a review

Shearography is a full-field speckle interferometric technique used to determine surface displacement derivatives. For an interferometric technique, shearography is particularly resilient to environmental disturbances and has hence become an invaluable measurement tool outside of the optics laboratory. Furthermore, the inclusion of additional measurement channels has turned shearography from a qualitative inspection tool into a system suitable for quantitative surface strain measurement. In this review article we present a comprehensive overview of the technique, describing the principle of operation, optical configurations, image processing algorithms and applications, with a focus on more recent technological advances.