Electronic speckle photography: measurement of in-plane strain fields through the use of defocused laser speckle

High-accuracy, noncontact measurements of in-plane strain fields have been performed through the use of an electronic-speckle-photography system. The strain fields are extracted from the displacement of defocused laser speckle in a telecentric imaging system. Two different illumination configurations have been suggested, both of which use four illumination directions. Both configurations produce results of an accuracy according to Me/ΔL, where M is the demagnification of the telecentric imaging system, e is the random error in the speckle-displacement fields, and ΔL is the magnitude of the defocusing distance. The maximum defocusing distance possible was found to be restricted by the spatial resolution, especially at high magnifications. In experiments on a semicircularly and a rectangularly notched aluminum sheet, the principal strain field around the notch was measured with a random error in the strain field of less than 10 µstrain (µm/m).