Damage investigation in CFRP composites using full-field measurement techniques: combination of digital image stereo-correlation, infrared thermography and X-ray tomography

The present work is devoted to damaging process in carbon–fiber reinforced laminated composites. An original experimental approach combining three optical measurement techniques is presented. Image stereo-correlation and infrared thermography, that respectively provide the kinematic and thermal fields on the surface of the composites, are used in live recording during axis and off-axis tensile tests. Special attention is paid to simultaneously conduct these two techniques while avoiding their respective influence. On the other hand, X-ray tomography allows a post-failure analysis of the degradation patterns within the laminates volume. All these techniques are non-destructive (without contact) and offer an interesting full-field investigation of the material response. Their combination allows a coupled analysis of different demonstrations of same degradation mechanisms. For instance, thermal events and densimetric fields show a random location of damage in the early stages of testing. The influence of the material initial anisotropy on damage growth, localization and failure mode can also be clearly put in evidence through various data. In addition to such characterization, this study illustrates at the same time the capabilities of the different full-field techniques and the damage features they can best capture respectively

A new digital image correlation software for displacements field measurement in structural applications

Recently, there has been a growing interest in studying non-contact techniques for strain and displacement measurement. Within photogrammetry, Digital Image Correlation (DIC) has received particular attention thanks to the recent advances in the field of low-cost, high resolution digital cameras, computer power and memory storage. DIC is indeed an optical technique able to measure full field displacements and strain by comparing digital images of the surface of a material sample at different stages of deformation and thus can play a major role in structural monitoring applications. For all these reasons, a free and open source 2D DIC software, named py2DIC, was developed at the Geodesy and Geomatics Division of DICEA, University of Rome "La Sapienza". Completely written in python, the software is based on the template matching method and computes the displacement and strain fields. The potentialities of Py2DIC were evaluated by processing the images captured during a tensile test performed in the Lab of Structural Engineering, where three different Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer samples were subjected to a controlled tension by means of a universal testing machine. The results, compared with the values independently measured by several strain gauges fixed on the samples, demonstrate the possibility to successfully characterize the deformation mechanism of the investigated material. Py2DIC is indeed able to highlight displacements at few microns level, in reasonable agreement with the reference, both in terms of displacements (again, at few microns in the average) and Poisson's module

A Method of Drusen Measurement Based on the Geometry of Fundus Reflectance

BACKGROUND: The hallmarks of age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in the developed world, are the subretinal deposits known as drusen. Drusen identification and measurement play a key role in clinical studies of this disease. Current manual methods of drusen measurement are laborious and subjective. Our purpose was to expedite clinical research with an accurate, reliable digital method. METHODS: An interactive semi-automated procedure was developed to level the macular background reflectance for the purpose of morphometric analysis of drusen. 12 color fundus photographs of patients with age-related macular degeneration and drusen were analyzed. After digitizing the photographs, the underlying background pattern in the green channel was leveled by an algorithm based on the elliptically concentric geometry of the reflectance in the normal macula: the gray scale values of all structures within defined elliptical boundaries were raised sequentially until a uniform background was obtained. Segmentation of drusen and area measurements in the central and middle subfields (1000 μm and 3000 μm diameters) were performed by uniform thresholds. Two observers using this interactive semi-automated software measured each image digitally. The mean digital measurements were compared to independent stereo fundus gradings by two expert graders (stereo Grader 1 estimated the drusen percentage in each of the 24 regions as falling into one of four standard broad ranges; stereo Grader 2 estimated drusen percentages in 1% to 5% intervals). RESULTS: The mean digital area measurements had a median standard deviation of 1.9%. The mean digital area measurements agreed with stereo Grader 1 in 22/24 cases. The 95% limits of agreement between the mean digital area measurements and the more precise stereo gradings of Grader 2 were -6.4 % to +6.8 % in the central subfield and -6.0 % to +4.5 % in the middle subfield. The mean absolute differences between the digital and stereo gradings 2 were 2.8 +/- 3.4% in the central subfield and 2.2 +/- 2.7% in the middle subfield. CONCLUSIONS: Semi-automated, supervised drusen measurements may be done reproducibly and accurately with adaptations of commercial software. This technique for macular image analysis has potential for use in clinical research

Determination of local material properties of OSB sample by coupling advanced imaging techniques and morphology-based FEM simulation

This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by Walter de Gruyter & Co. and can be found at: http://www.degruyter.com/.The goal was to determine local mechanical properties inside of oriented strand board (OSB) based on a realistic morphology-based finite element (FE) model and data acquired from a physical test performed on the same material. The spatial information and local grayscale intensity from CT-scans obtained from small OSB sample was transformed into a 2D regular morphology-based FE mesh with corresponding material properties. The model was then used to simulate the actual compression test performed on the specimen using simplified boundary conditions. The simulated strain fields from the model were compared with the actual strain field measured on the specimen surface during the compression test by means of a full-field optical method, named digital image correlation (DIC). Finally, the original set of material properties was adjusted by an iterative procedure to minimize the difference between the simulated and the measured strain data. The results show that the developed procedure is useful to find local material properties as well as for morphological modeling without the need of segmentation of the image data. The achieved results serve as a prerequisite for full 3D analyses of the complex materials

Full-Field, Carrier-Less, Polarization-Diversity, Direct Detection Receiver based on Phase Retrieval

We realize dual-polarization full-field recovery using intensity only measurements and phase retrieval techniques based on dispersive elements. 30-Gbaud QPSK waveforms are transmitted over 520-km standard single-mode fiber and equalized from the receiver outputs using 2X2 MIMO

Field-portable pixel super-resolution colour microscope.

Based on partially-coherent digital in-line holography, we report a field-portable microscope that can render lensfree colour images over a wide field-of-view of e.g., >20 mm(2). This computational holographic microscope weighs less than 145 grams with dimensions smaller than 17×6×5 cm, making it especially suitable for field settings and point-of-care use. In this lensfree imaging design, we merged a colorization algorithm with a source shifting based multi-height pixel super-resolution technique to mitigate 'rainbow' like colour artefacts that are typical in holographic imaging. This image processing scheme is based on transforming the colour components of an RGB image into YUV colour space, which separates colour information from brightness component of an image. The resolution of our super-resolution colour microscope was characterized using a USAF test chart to confirm sub-micron spatial resolution, even for reconstructions that employ multi-height phase recovery to handle dense and connected objects. To further demonstrate the performance of this colour microscope Papanicolaou (Pap) smears were also successfully imaged. This field-portable and wide-field computational colour microscope could be useful for tele-medicine applications in resource poor settings

A multi-object spectral imaging instrument

We have developed a snapshot spectral imaging system which fits onto the side camera port of a commercial inverted microscope. The system provides spectra, in real time, from multiple points randomly selected on the microscope image. Light from the selected points in the sample is directed from the side port imaging arm using a digital micromirror device to a spectrometer arm based on a dispersing prism and CCD camera. A multi-line laser source is used to calibrate the pixel positions on the CCD for wavelength. A CMOS camera on the front port of the microscope allows the full image of the sample to be displayed and can also be used for particle tracking, providing spectra of multiple particles moving in the sample. We demonstrate the system by recording the spectra of multiple fluorescent beads in aqueous solution and from multiple points along a microscope sample channel containing a mixture of red and blue dye