Development of a visual monitoring system for deformation measuring of welded members and its application

Recently, in the loading tests for steel members, the deformation value is measured by calculating a distance of both cross-heads. This measuring method encounters a test error due to various environmental factors, Such as initial slip, etc.. Especially, in the case of welded members, the non-uniform deformation behavior in welded joints is obseived because ofthe effect of welding residual stress and weld metal. This is mainly responsible for a test error and a loss of the reliability for used test instruments. TI,,terefore, to improve the accuracy and the applicability of measuring system, it is necessary to employ a visual monitoring system which can accurately measure the local and overall deformation of welded members. In this paper, to accurately measure a deformation of welded members, a Visual monitoring system (VMS) was developed by using three-dimensional digital pholograrrimetry. The VMS was applied to the loading tests of a welded member. The accuracy and the applicability of VMS was verified by comparing to the deformation value measured by a test instrurrient 'MTS-810). The characteristics of the behavior near a welded joint were investigated by using VNIS.