Strain tensor for large three-dimensional surface deformation of sheet metal from an object grating

Grating techniques are used to determine the three-dimensional deformation and the tangential strain of sheet metal. A grating is fixed on the surface and taken by stereo CCD cameras in different deformation states. By suitable line-following software, the grating coordinates in the images are determined with subpixel accuracy. Using photogrammetric methods, the three-dimensional coordinates are calculated from the image coordinates. The strain usually is determined by means of a deformation gradient, which is calculated from every deformed triangle. In this paper, the gradient is determined in the center of four neighboring meshes using a polynomial approximation of the displacement function in a reference position. The influence of the nontangential deformation is considered. By simulation, a flat sheet metal is deformed to a rotational symmetric surface. The difference of the known exact strain is compared with the numerically derived strain with respect to different grating pitches. The proposed method yields good results even in the case of large spatial deformation. It is applied to the deformation of a hatlike test specimen.