Design and evaluation of the poleidoscope: A novel digital polariscope

The goal of recent research in digital photoelasticity has been fast, reliable, and accurate full-field photoelastic data that will allow the technique to play a valued role in assessing material and structural integrity. A novel design for a polariscope that allows simultaneous capture of multiple images is described, and a prototype instrument is evaluated using both transmission and reflection photoelasticity. The design offers the potential for real-time data acquisition and processing of high-speed events, using a number of different approaches to digital photoelasticity. The evaluation of the instrument arranged for the phase-stepping method demonstrated that it was capable of providing results of comparable quality and accuracy to manual analysis and more conventional methods of acquiring phase-stepped images.