SEMINAR REPORT ON PHOTO-ELASTICITY

SUBMITTED BY-
ABHILASH KUMAR JHA
B-14
 CONTENTS
1.INTRODUCTION

2.HISTORY

3.LIGHT POLARISATION,

STRAIN INDUCED BIREFRINGENCE

4.ISOCLINICS AND ISOCHROMATICS

5.TWO DIMENSIONAL PHOTO –ELASTICITY

6.PLANE POLARISCOPE

7.CIRCULAR POALRISCOPE

8. APPLICATIONS

9. REFERENCES
 INTRODUCTION
Photoelasticity is a group of optical methods that serve to determine experimentally the state of
strains. We will talk here about the basic method only, which uses an observation of light passing
through a transparent material having property of strain-induced birefringence. Photoelasticity is
commonly used to examine models of plane structures. In order to relate experimental results to
reality, the model has to fulfill some conditions of similarity. However, in many cases, like in
plane state of stress, the stress repartition does not depend on the material constants so the
experimental results are valid for any other anisotropic material. Due to the above-mentioned
facts, the photoelasticity has great teaching advantages, visualizing the stresses in color images
and providing easy verification of assumptions and theoretical results. Therefore, despite of great
progress of numerical calculations in mechanics, photoelasticity remains essential part of
laboratory course on the strength of matter

HISTORY
The photoelastic phenomenon was first described by the Scottish physicist David
Brewster. Photoelasticity developed at the beginning of the twentieth century with the works
of E.G.Coker and L.N.G. Filon of University of London. Their book Treatise on Photoelasticity,
published in 1930 by Cambridge Press, became a standard text on the subject. Between 1930
and1940, many other books appeared on the subject, including books
in Russian, German and French. At the same time, much development occurred in the field –
great improvements were achieved in technique, and the equipment was simplified. With
refinements in the technology, the application of photoelasticity was extended to determining
three-dimensional states of stress. Many practical problems were solved using
photoelasticity, and it soon became widely used. A number of photoelastic laboratories were
established at educational institutions and in industry.
 LIGHT POLARISATION,STRAIN INDUCED BIEFRINGENCE
Light is a transverse electromagnetic wave, unambiguously determined by the intensity vectors
of electric and magnetic fields. Because the vectors mutually coupled, in practice an analysis of
one of them is sufficient. We will call it a “vector of light”. The refractive index or index of
refraction of a substance is a measure of the speed of light in that substance. It is expressed as a
ratio of the speed of light in vacuum relative to that in the considered medium. The velocity at
which light travels in vacuum is a physical constant, and the fastest speed at which energy or
information can be transferred.

However, light travels slower through any given material, or medium, that is not vacuum. As
light crosses from one medium into another, the same wave will travel at different speeds. This
process can be understood as follows. A light wave enters a transparent material and excites an
electron of an atom that makes up that material. The excited electron now emits a light wave of
its own, which in turn excites another electron of another atom. Between atoms, light is traveling
at light speed (c = 3×108 m/s). However, the time it takes to excite and emit contributes to the
average time it takes for a light wave to "travel" through the medium. In glass, the apparent light
speed is about 2×108 m/s, so 2/3 of c. Thus, the speed of light is different in different materials.

An “ordinary” light is an electromagnetic wave that passes through transparent material in some
direction the material’s atoms are excited in some direction, perpendicular to the light direction.
Because the time interval of the excitation is about 1e-8 second and each atom is excited in some
direction we observe only an average of huge number of the flashes. We observe non-polarized
light. Now, let us consider a material composed from fibers that can be excited in one direction
only. The polarization of light is the orientation of the wave's electric field at a point in space
over one period of the oscillation. When light travels in free space, in most cases it propagates as
a transverse wave — the polarization is perpendicular to the wave's direction of travel. The
electric field may be oriented in a single direction (linear polarization), or it may rotate as the
wave travels (circular or elliptical polarization). In the latter cases, the oscillations can rotate
either towards the right or towards the left in the direction of travel. There are some special
optical filters , called polarizers, that cause linear polarization of the light. The light, after
passing such material will be linearly polarized, it means the vector of the light will oscillate in
one direction. There are media that have some interesting property of optical anisotropy, called
birefringence. These materials are optically anisotropic because they have the refractive index
depending on direction of the light polarization. In such materials, there is one “fast” axis and
one “slow” axis. The light, passing through the material, divides into two rays; one of them
passes quickly through the medium and another slowly. In effect, two rays are phase shifted. The
shift we may observe in particular conditions.

The times of optical transition are different, depending on material thickness and speed:
t1 = d / v1, t2 = d / v2,

the difference in time is:

∆t = t1 − t2 = d (1 / v1 − 1 / v2).

The shift of ray’s components is proportional to the light speed and – consequently – to the
difference of refractive index, n:

δ = v0 ∆t = d (v0 / v1 − v0 / v2) = (n1 − n2) d.

According to Maxwell’s theory, the refractive indexes are linear combination of principal
stresses n1 = n + C1σ1 + C2σ2,

n2 = n + C2σ1 + C1σ2,

and their difference is:

n1 − n2 = (C1 - C2) (σ1 − σ2) = C (σ1 − σ2).

The shift of ray’s components is proportional to the difference of principal stresses:

δ = Cd (σ1 - σ2).

The birefringence described above is strain-induced birefringence.

The polariscope combines the different polarization states of light waves before and after passing
the specimen. Due to optical interference of the two waves, a fringe pattern is revealed. The
number of fringe order N is denoted as:- (δ/2 π)

which depends on relative retardation. By studying the fringe pattern one can determine the state
of stress at various points in the material.
 ISOCLINICS AND ISOCHROMATIC
Isoclinics are observed in the light with linear polarization. They determine the places where the
principal directions of stress are constant par. Isoclinics are black bands, lines, spots and points.

Isochromatics are the loci of the points along which the difference in the first and second
principal stress remains the same. Thus they are the lines which join the points with equal
maximum shear stress magnitude. The sea level is like isochromatics of zero order and hills as
isochromatics of higher orders. . Each isochromatics order has its own characteristic color that is
complementary to the color extinguished, namely: order 0th – black, order 1st – purple, order
2nd – purple light, order 3rd – red/green, order 4th – pink/green

TWO DIMENSIONAL PHOTO-ELASTICITY

Photoelasticity can be applied both to three-dimensional and two-dimensional state of stress. But
the application of photoelasticty to the three-dimensional state of stress is more involved as
compared to the state of two-dimensional or plane-stress system. So the present section deals
with application of photoelasticity in investigation of a plane stress system. This condition is
achieved when the thickness of the prototype is much smaller as compared to dimensions in the
plane. Thus one is only concerned with stresses acting parallel to the plane of the model, as other
stress components are zero. The experimental setup varies from experiment to experiment. The
two basic kinds of setup used are plane polariscope and circular polariscope.
The working principle of two-dimensional photoelasticity allows the measurement of retardation,
which can be converted to the difference between the first and second principal stress and their
orientation. To further get values of each stress component, a technique called stress-separation
is required. Several theoretical and experimental methods are utilized to provide additional
information to solve individual stress components.

PLANE POLARISCOPE
The setup consists of two linear polarizers and a light source. The light source can either emit
monochromatic light or white light depending upon the experiment. First the light is passed
through the first polarizer which converts the light into plane polarized light. The apparatus is set
up in such a way that this plane polarized light then passes through the stressed specimen. This
light then follows, at each point of the specimen, the direction of principal stress at that point.
The light is then made to pass through the analyzer and we finally get the fringe pattern.
The fringe pattern in a plane polariscope setup consists of both the isochromatics and the
isoclinics. The isoclinics change with the orientation of the polariscope while there is no change
in the isochromatics.
 CIRCULAR POLARISCOPE
In a circular polariscope setup two quarter-wave plates are added to the experimental setup of the
plane polariscope. The first quarter-wave plate is placed in between the polarizer and the
specimen and the second quarter-wave plate is placed between the specimen and the analyzer.
The effect of adding the quarter-wave plate after the source-side polarizer is that we
get circularly polarized light passing through the sample. The analyzer-side quarter-wave plate
converts the circular polarization state back to linear before the light passes through the analyzer.

Transmission Circular Polariscope

The same device functions as a plane polariscope when quarter wave plates are taken aside or rotated so their axes
parallel to polarization axes

The basic advantage of a circular polariscope over a plane polariscope is that in a circular
polariscope setup we only get the isochromatics and not the isoclinics. This eliminates the
problem of differentiating between the isoclinics and the isochromatics.
 APPLICATIONS
Photoelasticity has been used for a variety of stress analyses and even for routine use in design,
particularly before the advent of numerical methods, such as for instance finite elements or
boundary elements.Digitization of polariscopy enables fast image acquisition and data
processing, which allows its industrial applications to control quality of manufacturing process
for materials such as glass and polymer. Dentistry utilizes photoelasticity to analyze strain in
denture materials. Dynamic photoelasticity integrated with high-speed photography is utilized to
investigate fracture behavior in materials.Another important application of the photoelasticity
experiments is to study the stress field around bi-material notches. Bi-material notches exist in
many engineering application like welded or adhesively bonded structures

Tension lines in plastic protractor seen under cross-polarized light.

REFERENCES
1. limba.wil.pk.edu.pl/

2. Wikkipedia

3. www.ifsc.usp.br

4. textofvideo.nptel.iitm.ac.in/

5. Google images