BIOGRAPHY

Janice Dulieu-Barton is a Professor of Experimental Mechanics in the Bristol Composites Institute at the University of Bristol, where she is the Director of the New CDT in Innovation for Sustainable Composites Engineering  and the Industrial Doctorate Centre in Composites Manufacture. Janice received her PhD in 1993 from Manchester University researching the topic now known as ‘thermoelastic stress analysis’. She has published around 500 papers with 150 in archival journals. Janice’s expertise is in imaging for data rich material characterisations and structural integrity assessments, with a focus on creating new measurement methodologies using Infra-Red (IR) imaging.  She has won numerous grants that have allowed her to develop novel approaches in experimental mechanics, most recently focusing on integration of flexible photonics into composite structures with colleagues at the University of Southampton.

ABSTRACT

Data fusion to reveal subsurface defects during mechanical testing

Full-field Imaging techniques have the potential to revolutionise our approach to engineering design, offering new insight into material and larger system behaviour over a range of length and time scales. The recent relative reduction in cost of the camera systems and increased processing power to handle images, provides the opportunity for the techniques to be deployed at larger scales and realised industrially. Digital Image Correlation (DIC)is a kinematic optical technique that can deliver surface strains. Thermoelastic Stress Analysis (TSA) is based on thermomechanical couplings that utilises IR imaging to obtain a stress metric from the surface of a component. Our recent work has shown that TSA can be used to deliver stress based information from below the surface and used to identify hidden defects. The key enabler is the ability to fuse DIC and TSA to obtain full-field data respectively from structural components. The fused measurements can be integrated with structural and thermal finite element models. The approach makes it possible to assess composite structures at scales that represent the actual material behaviour and underpins a new approach in assessment that relies less on coupon testing of materials and enables a fully validated framework for virtual testing. The presentation will describe the underlying physics of the IR measurements, alongside a demonstration of the data fusion approach on a structural component.