Application of Real-Time Photoelastic Analysis to Single Fibre Fragmentation Tests

One of our main research areas is the trans-scale modelling of damage in composite materials, which consist of a polymer matrix and carbon or glass fibres in different material combinations and geometrical arrangements. From the local stress redistribution in the fibre-matrix interphase and in the surrounding matrix material information on the parameters of microscopic damage models for composite materials can be obtained. Owing to the difficult interface characterisation based on the properties of the single material components, a photoelastic analysis of single fibre fragmentation tests is performed. In addition to the qualitative visual interpretation in polarized light, an enhanced quantitative analysis in combination with digital photoelasticity using a four image phase shifting method will be applied [1]. As the sequential capturing of images might cause incorrect results, these four pictures are grabbed simultaneously. This allows for continuous testing. Additionally, errors due to the relaxation behaviour of the matrix material can be avoided. To this, a modular optical system consisting of a variable long distance microscope and a beam dividing module proposed by [2] was developed. It allows for the simultaneous projection of four different filtered images of one microscopic scene to the four quadrants of a CCD chip. This special equipment gives the possibility to apply quantitative photoelasticity to tensile tests performed on standard testing machines. This paper explains the measurement hardware and discusses the main problems and realised solutions from picture capturing through image processing to real-time photoelastic analysis at the present state of development. Exemplary results for the qualitative analysis of selected material combinations and different manufacturing processes are shown.