4/17/24, 12:00 AM Photoelasticity - Wikipedia

Photoelasticity
In materials science, photoelasticity describes changes in the
optical properties of a material under mechanical deformation. It
is a property of all dielectric media and is often used to
experimentally determine the stress distribution in a material.

History
The photoelastic phenomenon was first discovered by the Scottish
physicist David Brewster, who immediately recognized it as stress- Plastic utensils in a photoelasticity
induced birefringence. [1][2] That diagnosis was confirmed in a experiment
direct refraction experiment by Augustin-Jean Fresnel.[3]
Experimental frameworks were developed at the beginning of the
twentieth century with the works of E. G. Coker and L. N. G. Filon of University of London. Their book
Treatise on Photoelasticity, published in 1930 by Cambridge Press, became a standard text on the
subject. Between 1930 and 1940, many other books appeared on the subject, including books in
Russian, German and French. Max M. Frocht published the classic two volume work, Photoelasticity,
in the field.[4] At the same time, much development occurred in the field – great improvements were
achieved in technique, and the equipment was simplified. With refinements in the technology,
photoelastic experiments were extended to determining three-dimensional states of stress. In parallel
to developments in experimental technique, the first phenomenological description of photoelasticity
was given in 1890 by Friedrich Pockels,[5] however this was proved inadequate almost a century later
by Nelson & Lax[6] as the description by Pockels only considered the effect of mechanical strain on the
optical properties of the material.

With the advent of the digital polariscope – made possible by light-emitting diodes – continuous
monitoring of structures under load became possible. This led to the development of dynamic
photoelasticity, which has contributed greatly to the study of complex phenomena such as fracture of
materials.

Applications
Photoelasticity has been used for a variety of stress analyses and even for routine use in design,
particularly before the advent of numerical methods, such as finite elements or boundary elements.[7]
Digitization of polariscopy enables fast image acquisition and data processing, which allows its
industrial applications to control quality of manufacturing process for materials such as glass[8] and
polymer.[9] Dentistry utilizes photoelasticity to analyze strain in denture materials.[10]

Photoelasticity can successfully be used to investigate the highly localized stress state within
masonry[11][12][13] or in proximity of a rigid line inclusion (stiffener) embedded in an elastic
medium.[14] In the former case, the problem is nonlinear due to the contacts between bricks, while in
the latter case the elastic solution is singular, so that numerical methods may fail to provide correct

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results. These can be obtained through photoelastic techniques.

Dynamic photoelasticity integrated with high-speed photography
is utilized to investigate fracture behavior in materials.[15] Another
important application of the photoelasticity experiments is to
study the stress field around bi-material notches.[16] Bi-material
notches exist in many engineering application like welded or
adhesively bonded structures.
Photoelastic model to validate the
stiffener model. Isochromatic fringe
Formal definition patterns around a steel platelet in a
photo-elastic two-part epoxy resin.
For a linear dielectric material the change in the inverse
permittivity tensor with respect to the deformation (the
gradient of the displacement ) is described by [17]

where is the fourth-rank photoelasticity tensor, is the linear displacement from equilibrium,
and denotes differentiation with respect to the Cartesian coordinate . For isotropic materials, this
definition simplifies to [18]

where is the symmetric part of the photoelastic tensor (the photoelastic strain tensor), and is
the linear strain. The antisymmetric part of is known as the roto-optic tensor. From either
definition, it is clear that deformations to the body may induce optical anisotropy, which can cause an
otherwise optically isotropic material to exhibit birefringence. Although the symmetric photoelastic
tensor is most commonly defined with respect to mechanical strain, it is also possible to express
photoelasticity in terms of the mechanical stress.

Experimental principles
The experimental procedure relies on the property of
birefringence, as exhibited by certain transparent materials.
Birefringence is a phenomenon in which a ray of light passing
through a given material experiences two refractive indices. The
property of birefringence (or double refraction) is observed in
many optical crystals. Upon the application of stresses,
photoelastic materials exhibit the property of birefringence, and
the magnitude of the refractive indices at each point in the
material is directly related to the state of stresses at that point.
Tension lines in a plastic protractor
Information such as maximum shear stress and its orientation are seen under cross-polarized light
available by analyzing the birefringence with an instrument called
a polariscope.

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When a ray of light passes through a photoelastic material, its electromagnetic wave components are
resolved along the two principal stress directions and each component experiences a different
refractive index due to the birefringence. The difference in the refractive indices leads to a relative
phase retardation between the two components. Assuming a thin specimen made of isotropic
materials, where two-dimensional photoelasticity is applicable, the magnitude of the relative
retardation is given by the stress-optic law:[19]

where Δ is the induced retardation, C is the stress-optic coefficient, t is the specimen thickness, λ
is the vacuum wavelength, and σ1 and σ2 are the first and second principal stresses, respectively. The
retardation changes the polarization of transmitted light. The polariscope combines the different
polarization states of light waves before and after passing the specimen. Due to optical interference of
the two waves, a fringe pattern is revealed. The number of fringe order N is denoted as

which depends on relative retardation. By studying the fringe pattern one can determine the state of
stress at various points in the material.

For materials that do not show photoelastic behavior, it is still possible to study the stress
distribution. The first step is to build a model, using photoelastic materials, which has geometry
similar to the real structure under investigation. The loading is then applied in the same way to ensure
that the stress distribution in the model is similar to the stress in the real structure.

Isoclinics and isochromatics

Isoclinics are the loci of the points in the specimen along which the principal stresses are in the same
direction.

Isochromatics are the loci of the points along which the difference in the first and second principal
stress remains the same. Thus they are the lines which join the points with equal maximum shear
stress magnitude.[20]

Two-dimensional photoelasticity
Photoelasticity can describe both three-dimensional and two-dimensional states of stress. However,
examining photoelasticity in three-dimensional systems is more involved than two-dimensional or
plane-stress system. So the present section deals with photoelasticity in a plane stress system. This
condition is achieved when the thickness of the prototype is much smaller as compared to dimensions
in the plane. Thus one is only concerned with stresses acting parallel to the plane of the model, as
other stress components are zero. The experimental setup varies from experiment to experiment. The
two basic kinds of setup used are plane polariscope and circular polariscope.

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