New Possibilities of using PhotoStress® Method

Abstract

The PhotoStress® method allows the determination of strains and stresses in the loaded and photoelastically coated structural members. The quantitative values of differences of the principal strains (stresses) and their directions can be used to obtain the field of strain or stress components on the whole coated surface using further experimental data. In order to accelerate the process of measurement in the point, along the line or on the surface a new software application PhotoStress was designed and developed by the authors in collaboration with Kybernetika, s.r.o. company that allows to determine directions and magnitudes of differences of the principal strains or stresses on the basis of a photograph of photoelastically coated objects. The reflection polariscopes M030, M040 and LF/Z-2 with separation methods (the Slitting method, method of oblique incidence, method using a separative tensometer and method of shear stress differences) can be used in the measurement chain. The new program product for these applications, its short description and use are discussed in the present paper.