In situ CTE measurements and damage detection using optical metrology

This paper presents a methodology to make coefficient of thermal expansion measurements through the combined use of two non-contact and full field optical metrology methods including digital image correlation and infrared thermography. In this context, active Infrared Thermography techniques combined with contact and non-contact deformation measurement methods have already been reported to measure materials' thermal expansion. In addition, such techniques have been reported to be capable to detect surface and subsurface defects from changes in homogenous heat diffusion due to damage. Based on this knowledge, it is hypothesized in this article that the material response induced by thermal loading and quantified by coefficient of thermal expansion measurements could be further used as an indicator of damage. To validate the hypothesis three measurements were performed. The first established the effectiveness of using deformation and thermal full field data for coefficient of thermal expansion measurements. The second intended to demonstrate the advantage of using such full field data in order to provide site-specific measurements of thermal expansion. Finally damage was a priori induced to a metallic specimen, and the measured variations of local CTE confirmed the potential of using the described approach as a means of damage quantification in materials and structures.