Development of LED-based illumination system for high-speed digital image correlation

Abstract The present work describes the design and development of a dedicated illumination system for application to high-speed digital image correlation. This type of application requires image acquisition to be performed with very short shutter times. This means that there is less time to integrate the incoming light and, as such, it is necessary to have significant light flux to acquire quality images. As such, illumination is usually the major concern in such high-speed imaging applications. The developed system uses a strobing high-power LED light source to tackle this issue, and illuminate the specimen with a large light flux during a very short period. This reduces the amount of heat that the specimen receives from the lighting source and has the advantage of enabling the use of cameras that would otherwise be unable to use such short shutter times effectively. In this paper, the whole design of the device is described. From the control electronics to the mechanical design, including the optical design of an appropriate reflector.