Radial metrology application to whole-body measurement on hyperelastic tubular samples

Abstract This paper focuses on a one-camera/one-shot procedure able to get the whole deformation map of hyperelastic tubular samples. A challenging application of this approach is the investigation of the highly anisotropic and inhomogeneous arterial tissue mechanical response during inflation/extension tests. To address this issue, full field optical methods based on digital correlation (DIC), fringe projection (FP) and stereo-photogrammetry (SP) have been already proposed in literature to overcome limitations of the most widely adopted 2-D video dimension analyzer (VDA) systems. In this paper, the feasibility of a very straightforward full-field procedure that uses radial metrology concepts has been studied. The rationale behind the proposed method relies on the relation existing between image deformation of a world point reflected by a 45° concave conical mirror and the relative position of this point with respect to the specular surface. Under certain assumptions reasonably true for the application of interest, by using simple relationships, it is possible to retrieve the position of markers applied onto the sample surface with great precision. This procedure has several advantages such as the retrieval of the whole 360° surface map in one shot, the ease of application, the use of one single camera, the real-time measurement capability. Conversely, the proposed approach is suitable only for geometries with smooth transversal sections, needs sample preparation and its spatial resolution is limited by the sparsity of the surface control points. The paper describes first the theoretical basis of the procedure; then results of experimental tests on calibration samples and latex tubular specimens are presented and discussed. Further set-up improvements will allow the present procedure to be implemented for in-vitro inflation/extension tests on vascular segments.