The detection of crack development in a masonry wall forms an important study for investigating the earthquake resistance capability of the masonry structures. Traditionally, inspecting the structure and documenting the findings were done manually. The procedures are time-consuming, and the results are sometimes inaccurate. Therefore, the digital image correlation (DIC) technique is developed to identify the strain and crack variations. This technique is non-destructive for inspecting the whole displacement and strain field. Tests on two masonry wall samples were performed to verify the performance of the digital image correlation method. The phenomena of micro cracks, strain concentration situation and nonuniform deformation distribution which could not have been observed preciously by manual inspection are successfully identified using DIC. The crack formation tendencies on masonry wall can be observed at an earlier stage by this proposed method. These results show a great application potential of the DIC technique for various situations such as inspecting shrinkage-induced cracks in fresh concrete, masonry and reinforced concrete structures, and safety of bridges.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.