A New Six-Step Phase Shifting Technique Using Mixed-Polariscope in Digital Photoelasticity

Photoelasticity is one of the most widely used techniques for experimental stress and strain analysis. With the availability of low cost digital image processing systems, a separate branch of photoelasticity known as digital photoelasticity came into existence providing whole-field values of the isoclinics (θ) and isochromatics (N) in a true sense. Among the several methods available for data acquisition, phase shifting / polarization stepping techniques are most widely used for their simplicity and accuracy. In this paper a new digital photoelastic method based on phase shifting using monochromatic light source is presented. It provides full field values of θ and N. The arrangement is carefully chosen with the intention of reducing the influence of quarter wave mismatch error in the evaluation of θ and N. The methodology is validated for the benchmark problem of a disk under diametral compression.