Utilizing Thermo-elastic Stress Analysis to Aid Development of Test-to-Model Correlation Criteria

Date of Award

2021

Degree Name

M.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Department

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Advisor/Chair

Dennis Buchanan

Abstract

Non-contact instrumentation methods are becoming more prevalent in the realm of structural testing for collecting experimental data to correlate to finite element models. Thermo-elastic stress analysis is a type of non-contact method that has been gaining popularity in its use, however, criteria for how to correlate this data to finite element models has not been developed. As this method produces an averaged image over a span of cyclical loading, assessing the quality of the image is the first step in determining how to develop criteria for correlation. Included herein is an experiment that employs a thermo-elastic stress analysis system that utilizes a microbolometer to capture infrared images from the heat produced from a dogbone specimen. These images are then compared to a reference image, and image quality indices and an error index are produced for each set of images. These values are evaluated and a determination is made on how to utilize them for correlating the model strain values to the strain values measured by the thermo-elastic stress analysis system.

Keywords

Statistics, Scientific Imaging, Optics, Mechanical Engineering, thermo-elastic stress analysis, image analysis, model correlation, strain gage comparison, microbolometer

Rights Statement

Copyright © 2021, author.

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