Effects of Ray Bending in Scattered Light Photoelasticity for Tempered and Annealed Glass Plates

Abstract

Residual stresses in tempered glass plates can be measured with the scattered light method. Usually a rectilinear propagation of light is assumed. However, due to the gradients of the refractive index, the light rays curve. We have experimentally demonstrated this for tempered (surface stress 120 MPa and more) and annealed glass plates. For a laser beam of finite width this also results in broadening and loss of photoelastic modulation. While some features of the experimental picture (dependence of the period of modulation on depth), can be captured in the simple model of rectilinear propagation, the other observations need development of more elaborated models.