SUMMARY
This thesis details the development and validation of a laser Doppler vibrometer-based measurement system that is capable of quantifying not only the normal vibration of a solid body but also the component of vibration that is parallel to the plane containing the surface of interest. LDV manufacturers produce various devices that capture 3D measurements in a couple different ways, but the most popular method involves using three laser heads in a configuration that can be used to decompose the measured signals into not only the normal vibration of the surface of an object but also the two orthogonal in-plane components of that vibration. It was a slightly simplified two-dimensional version of this method that was chosen for the implementation in The Wave Physics lab using individual components to create a cheaper more flexible system than those produced by companies like Polytec. The goal of this system is to facilitate the exploration and discovery of areas and applications where 2D measurement may provide a more complete and precise view of the physics of different phenomena. Upon completion of the system development, a study was done that sought to measure stress in an Aluminum plate by measuring how increasing loads altered both the normal and in-plane components of Lamb waves propagating in the plate.