Caratterizzazione elasto-plastica mediante prove di trazione e interferometria speckle

In the present work of thesis an experimental equipment for elasto-plastic characterization of engineering materials by tensile tests is presented. The stress state is imposed to the specimen by a testing machine fixed on the optical table and designed for optimizing the performance of a speckle interferometer. All three displacement components are measured by a portable speckle interferometer fed by three laser diodes of 50 mW, by which the deformations of small surfaces can be fully analyzed in details. The whole equipment is driven by control electronics designed and realized on purpose, by which it is possible to accurately modify the intensity of the illumination sources, the position of a PZT actuator necessary for applying phaseshifting procedure, and the overall displacement applied to the specimen. The experiments were carried out by a virtual instrument implemented in National Instrument LabVIEW environment, while the processing of the experimental data in Wolfram Mathematica environment. The thesis first reports some preliminary results obtained by a specimen subjected to 3D rigid body motions; the results showed a high accuracy and repeatability of the interferometer. Then, the whole experimental apparatus was employed for the elasto-plastic characterization of a high strength steel specimen. The σ-ε curve for the material was determined and the experimental data were approximated using Ramberg-Osgood and Hollomon’s constitutive models.