Digital Image Correlation Techniques for Prestressed Concrete Tie Quality Control

Author(s):  
Sally Bartelmo ◽  
Sreehari Rajan ◽  
Ning Li ◽  
Michael Sutton ◽  
Dimitrios C. Rizos

Qualification of prestressed concrete railroad ties is currently performed through testing at the design level following established AREMA guidelines, while important parameters, such as the strand transfer length, are typically not identified. Conventional testing practices are time demanding, expensive and labor intensive. Consequently, implementation of highly reliable, yet cost effective, quality control procedures at the tie production stage is highly appropriate and desired. In this work, the authors developed a stereo-vision system for both laboratory and industrial environments to measure the 3-D strain fields on the surfaces of prestressed concrete railroad ties. The proposed measurement system is based on the Digital Image Correlation (DIC) techniques developed in University of South Carolina (USC) laboratories over the past three decades. It is a non-destructive, non-contacting technique that has been successfully applied to obtain full-field measurements for a wide range of materials, loading types and temperature conditions. Known as 3D-DIC or Stereo-DIC, the method employs a stereo-vision system to successfully perform quality assessment of concrete ties in relation to the determination of: (i) the transfer length in both laboratory and production facility environments and (ii) full strain fields during product qualification tests to identify product defects. The proposed procedure is introduced and verified through application in a laboratory environment. The implementation of the method is presented and the cost effectiveness, accuracy, and versatility are discussed.

Author(s):  
Guoqing Jing ◽  
Du yunchang ◽  
Ruilin You ◽  
Mohammad Siahkouhi

Rubber concrete (RC) has been confirmed to be suitable for concrete sleeper production. This paper studies the cracking behaviour of conventional and rubber-reinforced concrete sleepers based on the results of an experimental program. The cracking behaviour in the pure bending zone was analysed up to a load of 140 kN. The crack mouth opening displacement (CMOD) was accordingly measured using a digital image correlation (DIC) method. The DIC results show that the rubber prestressed concrete sleeper (RPCS) has a resistance against crack initiation that is 20% greater than that of the conventional prestressed concrete sleeper (CPCS) under the same loading condition; however, due to the higher crack growth rate of the RPCS, the first crack detected by the operator forms at 60 kN, which corresponds to a strength approximately 9% lower compared with the 65 kN load at which the first crack is detected in the CPCS. Before the first crack (60 kN), the RPCS has a deflection 35% lower than that of the CPCS, but after cracking, at loads of 80 kN, 100 kN and 140 kN, the RPCS has a deflection 15%, 4% and 24% higher than that of the CPCS, respectively.


Author(s):  
Edel Arrieta ◽  
Mohammad Haque ◽  
Jorge Mireles ◽  
Calvin Stewart ◽  
Cesar Carrasco ◽  
...  

Mechanical properties of additive manufactured metal components can be affected by the orientation of the layer deposition. In this investigation, Ti–6Al–4V cylindrical specimens were fabricated by electron beam melting (EBM) at four different build angles (0 deg, 30 deg, 60 deg, and 90 deg) and tested as per ASTM E8 Standard Test Methods for Tension Testing of Metallic Materials. With the layer-by-layer fabrication suggesting granting anisotropic properties to the builds, strain fields were recorded by digital image correlation (DIC) in the search for shear effects under uniaxial loads. For the validation of this measuring method, axial strains were measured with a clip extensometer and a virtual extensometer, simultaneously. Failure analysis of the specimens at different orientations was conducted to evidence the recording of shear strain fields. The failure analysis included fractography, optical micrographs of the microstructure distribution, and failure profiles displaying different failure features associated with the layering orientation. Additionally, an experimental study case of how the failure mode of components can potentially be designed from the fabrication process is presented. At the end, remarks about the shear effects found, and an insight of the possibility of designing components by failure for safer structures are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 174-192
Author(s):  
Nedaa Amraish ◽  
Andreas Reisinger ◽  
Dieter H. Pahr

Digital image correlation (DIC) systems have been used in many engineering fields to obtain surface full-field strain distribution. However, noise affects the accuracy and precision of the measurements due to many factors. The aim of this study was to find out how different filtering options; namely, simple mean filtering, Gaussian mean filtering and Gaussian low-pass filtering (LPF), reduce noise while maintaining the full-field information based on constant, linear and quadratic strain fields. Investigations are done in two steps. First, linear and quadratic strain fields with and without noise are simulated and projected to discrete measurement points which build up strain window sizes consisting of 6×5, 12×11, and 26×17 points. Optimal filter sizes are computed for each filter strategy, strain field type, and strain windows size, with minimal impairment of the signal information. Second, these filter sizes are used to filter full-field strain distributions of steel samples under tensile tests by using an ARAMIS DIC system to show their practical applicability. Results for the first part show that for a typical 12×11 strain window, simple mean filtering achieves an error reduction of 66–69%, Gaussian mean filtering of 72–75%, and Gaussian LPF of 66–69%. If optimized filters are used for DIC measurements on steel samples, the total strain error can be reduced from initial 240−300 μstrain to 100–150 μstrain. In conclusion, the noise-floor of DIC signals is considerable and the preferable filters were a simple mean with s*¯ = 2, a Gaussian mean with σ*¯ = 1.7, and a Gaussian LPF with D0*¯ = 2.5 in the examined cases.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (19) ◽  
pp. 5622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fengqiao Zhang ◽  
Gabriela I. Zarate Garnica ◽  
Yuguang Yang ◽  
Eva Lantsoght ◽  
Henk Sliedrecht

In the Netherlands, many prestressed concrete bridge girders are found to have insufficient shear–tension capacity. We tested four girders taken from a demolished bridge and instrumented these with traditional displacement sensors and acoustic emission (AE) sensors, and used cameras for digital image correlation (DIC). The results show that AE can detect cracking before the traditional displacement sensors, and DIC can identify the cracks with detailed crack kinematics. Both AE and DIC methods provide additional information for the structural analysis, as compared to the conventional measurements: more accurate cracking load, the contribution of aggregate interlock, and the angle of the compression field. These results suggest that both AE and DIC are suitable options that warrant further research on their use in lab tests and field testing of prestressed bridges.


2008 ◽  
Vol 13-14 ◽  
pp. 65-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry D. Lord ◽  
David Penn ◽  
P. Whitehead

The measurement of residual stress using the incremental hole drilling is well established, but the main limitations with the conventional strain gauge approach are the requirements for surface preparation, the need for accurate alignment and drilling, the restricted range of hole geometries commensurate with the specific gauge designs, and the limited range of strain data averaged over the footprint of the strain gauge grid. Recent attempts to extend the method have seen the application of full field optical techniques such as electronic speckle pattern interferometry and holographic interferometry for measuring the strain fields around the hole, but these methods are sensitive to vibration and this limits their practical use to controlled laboratory environments. There are significant potential benefits therefore of using a more robust technique based on Digital Image Correlation (DIC), and work is presented in this study on the development of the method for measuring surface displacements and strain fields generated during incremental hole drilling. Some of the practical issues associated with the technique development, including the optimization of applied patterns, the development of the optical system and integration with current hole drilling equipment are discussed, and although measurements are only presented for a single load case - the equi-biaxial stress state introduced during shot peening - the novel aspect of this work is the integration of DIC measurements with incremental drilling and an application of the Integral Method analysis to measure the variation of residual stress with depth. Validation data comparing results from conventional strain gauge data and FE models is also presented.


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