Editorial

Abstract

This themed edition of the BSSM journal of Strain features five short technical papers from authors who presented their research at the Rank Prize Fund Symposium, ‘Optical Metrology Techniques for Industrial Applications’, which was held in Grasmere (The Lake District, UK) during April 2002. The papers discuss various aspects of optical metrology techniques and their application to industrial problems. The Rank Prize Funds were established in 1972 by Lord Rank, to ‘recognise and foster significant advances in areas of science which were of particular interest to Lord Rank’. There are two funds: Human and Animal Nutrition and Crop Husbandry, and Opto-electronics. The Opto-electronics Fund provides the means to help explore the interfaces between optics and electronics across a wide range of theory and application. The funds provide substantial prizes in recognition of significant advances in the respective technical fields, promote understanding and dissemination in the main fund areas through the sponsoring of research project, large and small symposia. The funds sponsor an average of four mini-symposia a year in each area. The Rank Prize Fund Symposium in ‘Optical Metrology Techniques for Industrial Applications’ was organised by Professor Colin Webb (Oxford University), Dr Jon Petzing (Loughborough University) and Dr Steve James (Cranfield University). The Symposium was by invitation and attended by nine senior international speakers (UK, Sweden, Germany, USA and Japan), and 16 younger delegates who were all in the final stages of PhD studies, or recent post-doctoral researchers. The Symposium provided 27 presentations based on wholefield speckle interferometry, shape measurement, intrinsic and extrinsic fibre sensors. The five papers from the Symposium illustrate the optical metrology techniques covered during the event. The first two papers (Ortiz and Patterson, and Groves et al.) illustrate the use of wholefield optical metrology techniques. Ortiz and Patterson discuss the use of moiré and fringe projection techniques for the analysis of component deformation as well as component shape, whilst Groves et al. consider the use of speckle shearing interferometry to analyse the integrity of pipe welds. Three other contributions are presented here, which deal with the issues of optical fibre-based metrology techniques. O'Dwyer and Padgett provide a detailed discussion about issues of instrumentation quality, reliability of components and optical design, which has allowed them to refine the tracking of laser parameters within fibre-based instrumentation. The paper by Sorazu et al. considers aspects of generating, but more specifically detecting ultrasound for non-destructive testing. The authors provide comparisons between three different optical metrology techniques for the detection process, highlighting potential advantages over more traditional contact-based transducers. In the third paper on fibre systems, Wong et al. discuss the issues of introducing polymer-based fibre materials compared with the more common silica-based materials for two specific applications – biofouling system for water condition monitoring and strain monitoring for composite structures. Finally, the last paper (Jones and Wang) in this themed edition was not a feature of the symposium but was submitted to the journal through the normal route. This paper investigates the analysis of digital imaging photoelasticity and provides another discussion of optical metrology for engineering analysis. The paper investigates the ability to refine data extraction from the isochromatic fringes, using different RGB colour planes of a colour CCD TV camera, supported with a number of experimental examples. In conclusion, we would like to thank Janice Barton and the Strain Editorial Board for inviting us to edit this themed issue of Strain, the authors for their contributions and the anonymous reviewers whose comments have helped all the authors in this edition. Finally, acknowledgement and thanks are due to the Rank Prize Fund trustees and staff (The Earl of Selborne, Judith Delaney, Susan Bristol and Angela Cross) for the funding and administration of the symposium, and providing the opportunity to participate.