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Recent Progress in Digital Image Correlation: Background and Developments since the 2013 W M Murray Lecture

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Abstract

Since presentation of the 2013 Murray Lecture focusing on developments in digital image correlation (DIC), the methods have continued to expand internationally and their use has begun to grow in fields where there was less activity in the past. First, a brief history of digital image correlation methods is presented from the perspective of the first author, followed by a discussion of recent trends associated with the use of digital image correlation methods in academics, governmental laboratories and industrial settings. In the remainder of the article, new results are provided in three areas where DIC methods have seen rapid growth; application of StereoDIC or three-dimensional DIC (3D-DIC) to the study of wall structures in civil engineering; the use of Volumetric DIC or Digital Volume Correlation (DVC) to quantify the internal response of a specially-designed composite material and in the area of model validation for another application in civil engineering; transfer length measurements in pre-stressed concrete beams.

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Notes

  1. As is noted in the next few sentences, this original work was followed by additional studies that led to an archival publication in 1987 (see [10]).

  2. After joining the faculty at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, Prof. TC Chu performed preliminary photogrammetric experiments with his PhD student circa 1990 [17].

  3. What is not shown in the report is an additional set of measurements obtained of the crown region on top of the aircraft test article. Though the experimental process was successful on the crown region, data was not included in the report due to excessive reflectivity of the crown region in the sunlight during the imaging process. The reflections limited the measurement area to a small portion of the field of view and hence were not sufficient to evaluate the response of the key section of interest on the crown.

  4. It is possible to increase the gain on most scientific grade cameras if additional lighting is not available. However, when increasing gain, one increases both the intensity pattern signal and noise simultaneously, which may affect the accuracy of the measurements.

  5. Similar results to those shown in Table 3 were obtained for strains in three separate experiments and for in-plane displacements in all but one experiment. For the outlier experiment, the measured in-plane displacements using average images had mean values that were 10× higher than in other experiments. The source of the increased bias in the mean values is unknown, but may have been due to unexpected laboratory floor vibrations which induced deleterious motions of the stereo camera system during the image acquisition process.

  6. Standard deviations for the various experimentally determined parameters are not reported since only a limited number of independent experiments were performed.

  7. In some applications, CT scanning is performed where the z-direction dimension of a voxel in an image is increased to reduce the size of the images, introducing additional errors in the DIC—based measurements along this direction.

  8. Initial studies mounted the cameras firmly to the horizontal I-beam within the load-bearing frame structure. During this initial experiment, it was observed that release of pretension in the tendons during flame cutting of the cable strands was far more violent than expected, causing shock waves in the frame structure as the cable separated. The shock waves propagated up the vertical I-beams and across the horizontal I-beam, resulting in relative motion of the cameras and defocusing of one camera, so that no data was obtained. Based on this observation, all further experiments were performed with the cameras mounted on an independent vertical structure.

  9. Preliminary baseline experiments performed using halogen lights showed a continually increasing and highly variable strain field on the specimen, with strains that reached 300 με after 1 h. It was determined that the halogen lights were heating both the specimen and the surrounding air, resulting in the observed pseudo-strains. Replacement of the halogen lights with low heat lights eliminated this problem.

  10. The small range of rotations was considered sufficient for these experiments since the specimen would experience very small rotations when the cables are released.

  11. During initial heating up of the camera, various components of the camera may experience different temperatures and this can lead to differential expansion. Hence, if the cameras are calibrated before reaching the steady state, the calibration parameters obtained can be different from the actual steady state value. In these studies, the cameras were allowed to heat up for ~ 1 h prior to calibration.

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Acknowledgments

The technical support of Profs. Juan Caicedo and Robert Mullen for the Civil Engineering studies, and also Profs. Jeffrey Helm (Lafayette College) and Stephen McNeill throughout our many years of image correlation research and development, are gratefully acknowledged. The efforts of civil engineering laboratory technical staff including Timothy Ross and Russell Inglett are also recognized and appreciated. The support of the University of South Carolina’s Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering, as well as the Air Force Research Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, is deeply appreciated. In addition, the editorial effort of Prof. Ioannis Chasiotis along with his detailed comments that greatly improved the overall presentation are deeply appreciated. Finally, the financial support provided by the Federal Railway Administration through DTFR53-14-C-00023, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through NASA NNX13AD43A and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of South Carolina through course load reduction is gratefully acknowledged.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, 29208, USA

    M. A. Sutton & S. Rajan

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, 29208, USA

    F. Matta & D. Rizos

  3. Chao and Associates, 7 Clusters Ct, Columbia, SC, 29210, USA

    R. Ghorbani

  4. Composites and Hybrids Branch, Nonmetallic Materials Division, Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright Patterson AFB, Dayton, OH, USA

    D. H. Mollenhauer

  5. Correlated Solutions, Incorporated, 121 Dutchman Blvd, Irmo, SC, 29063, USA

    H. W. Schreier

  6. Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia

    A. O. Lasprilla

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Correspondence to M. A. Sutton.

Appendix

Appendix

Several individuals contributed materially to the development of the digital image correlation methodology that is used today.

A brief historical account of their contributions is provided in the introduction to this article, including the development of DVC in the late 1990s. This appendix provides a set of photographs for each of the individuals who made contributions to the development and improvement of the methods.

Fig. A-1
figure a

Pioneering developers of digital image correlation methods and their use in experimental mechanics from 1982 to 1997. 2D-DIC: Peters, Ranson, Chu, Sutton, McNeill, Bruck and Schreier. 3D-DIC/StereoDIC: Chao, Sutton, McNeill, Luo, Helm and Schreier. Volumetric DIC/DVC: Bay and all 2D DIC contributors.

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Sutton, M.A., Matta, F., Rizos, D. et al. Recent Progress in Digital Image Correlation: Background and Developments since the 2013 W M Murray Lecture. Exp Mech 57, 1–30 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11340-016-0233-3

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