Stress and strain measurements by image correlation and Thermoelasticity
In this paper image correlation and thermoelaticity are proposed as joint measurement techniques to perform a “full field” characterization of materials and mechanical components. The very interesting possibilities offered by using both these non contact measurements techniques is the ability to obtain, by measuring both stress and strain, distributions of mechanical parameters on the surface of a dynamically loaded mechanical component, made, in general, of any material. This kind of results can be very useful for non homogeneous, composite or complex materials, or for complex shapes or loading conditions of the mechanical component under analysis, nowadays largely used for machine and structure realizations. In the work a proper coating, useful to perform measurements by both the techniques, is developed and tested. The coating act as a stressstrain distributed gauges.
Full-field separation of principal stresses by combined thermo- and photoelasticity
The combined use of thermoelastic stress analysis and full-field reflection photoelasticity based on the phase-stepping technique has been developed for twodimensional problems. The first method determines the sum of the principal stresses, the latter evaluates the difference of the principal stresses. Thus the principal stresses were separated at each point in the field of view without reference to neighboring points. An evaluation of this approach has been performed using a tensile plate with a central circular hole. The results show that the analysis carried out combining thermo- and photoelasticity incurred errors no larger than those of each system working independently.
Composite monolayer fabrication by an arc-spray process
A single layer (monotape) technique for fabricating complex high-temperature tungsten-fiber-reinforced superalloy composites is proposed. The fabrication of sheets of arc-sprayed monotape 38 cm wide and 122 cm long has been demonstrated. Composites fabricated using the method are shown to have equal tensile strength and a cleaner matrix than composites fabricated from powder metal cloth monotapes, and the present technique is less expensive than the powder metal fabrication techniques.