On photoelastic stress measurements in optically absorbing medium

The effects of optical absorption in a photoelastic medium on the formation of the fringe patterns are studied by taking into account the stress-induced anisotropy of both the refractive index and the absorption coefficient. The propagation of optical waves in a dielectric solid under the influence of stress is formulated by incorporating complex elasto-optical tensor elements in the wave equation. The expression for optical transmission from the plane polariscope configuration consisting of an absorbing photoelastic specimen is derived using the Jones calculus formalism including complex optical retardation terms. It is observed that the photoelastic fringe fields are substantially modified due to these effects which must be considered for accurate interpretation of the experimentally obtained fringes.