Thermoelastic Stress Analysis (TSA)

Abstract

Thermoelastic stress analysis (TSA) is a full-field non-contact optical method for measuring the stresses on the surface of bodies. The method is based on the thermoelastic effect according to which when a material is subjected to a cyclical load a temperature variation is produced. Under adiabatic conditions, the temperature variation for isotropic materials is proportional to the sum of the two surface principal stresses. The temperature changes are very small of the order of 0.001 °C. The theoretical basis of the thermoelastic effect is known for more than 150 years. However, TSA appeared in the last 30 years due to the advent of infrared (IR) detectors capable to monitor very small temperature changes.