Digital image correlation method for measuring thermal deformation of composite materials

Thermal deformation measurement of the high-speed aircrafts under the high temperature is significant for reliability assessment, life prediction, and safety design for the materials and structures. This paper presents a digital image correlation method to accurately measure the full-field thermal deformation of composites under the environment of high temperature. First, real-time deformation images of experimental objects under different loads are acquired with CCD cameral. Based on the digital speckle correlation theory, the bilinear interpolation algorithm is employed to measure the thermal deformation. Last, the comparative analyses on measurement results by the proposed and traditional methods are conducted, as well as factors impacting measurement errors are analyzed.