New Initiatives on Comparison of Whole-field Experimental and Numerical Results

Abstract: A simple approach to plot photoelastic fringes in grey scale and also in colour from finite element (FE) results is presented for better recognition and comparison with experiments. This requires proper identification of the plotting variable from FE results. For comparison with transmission photoelasticity, post-processing of principal stress difference is needed and for reflection photoelasticity the principal strain difference is to be used. The importance of the use of appropriate correction factors for comparison with reflection photoelastic results is emphasised. A newer approach to evaluate R _f for complicated geometries is indicated. Plotting of experimental fringes from finite elements is useful not only for validating the numerical model based on experiments but also for validating the experiments. To illustrate this, the problem of an interfacial crack in a bi-material Brazilian disc is discussed.