INTRODUCfIONAccurate determination of stress distributions is essential in assessing the structural integrity of a component. Photoelasticity and thennoelasticity are full field nondestructive methods used to measure the stress state of an object.Photoelasticity has been used for decades to accurately measure surface strains in a structure. In this method the test part, complex or not, is first coated with a strain-sensitive plastic coating and then subjected to an external load. The strains which exist throughout the part and over its surface are transferred to the coating and observed as optical interference fringes with a reflection polariscope. Two different fringe patterns are produced with the polariscope --isochromatics via circular polarization and isoclinics via linear polarization. Isochromatic fringes appear as a series of successive and contiguous different-colored bands each representing a different degree of birefringence corresponding to the underlying strain. The patterns can be read like a topographic map to visualize the stress distribution over the surface of the coated test part. The isoclinic fringes appear as black bands providing the direction of the principal strain [1][2]. Now that digital cameras and image processing are common, photoelasticity is undergoing a renaissance.Whereas photoelasticity is an optical method, thennoelasticity is based on temperature changes induced by expansion and compression of the test part. Although this coupling between mechanical defonnation and thennal energy has been known for over a century, it has only been recently that this phenomenon has been exploited as a means of experimental stress analysis. The heat generated from the thennoelastic effect is small --O.2°C for mild steel just below its yielding point --requiring thennoelastic stress analysis to be perfonned under a dynamic loading condition of a sufficiently high frequency to maintain an effectively adiabatic state in the material [3]. For practical thennoelastic measurements using infrared thennography, the object under examination must have a highly emissive surface. For objects with low emissivity, such as metallic surfaces, a coating must be added, such as flat black paint.
COMBINATION OF THERMOELASTICITY AND PHOTOELASTICITYThennoelastic signals are proportional to the sum of the principal stresses (a is the thennal conductivity, p is the density, C" is the specific heat capacity) whereas photoelasticity measures the difference of the principal stresses plus the principal stress