Noise removal in three-fringe photoelasticity by adaptive colour difference estimation

Three-fringe photoelasticity (TFP) can give the total fringe order from a single-colour isochromatic fringe field. In TFP, the total fringe order is obtained by comparing the colour of the unknown photoelastic fringe pattern with a calibration specimen. Comparison is conventionally done by minimising the colour difference error. This leads to misidentification of fringe order in some regions. A new colour difference formula is proposed with an additional term, which ensures continuity of fringe order data over the domain. Fringe order data obtained by conventional TFP is used as base data and the new method is termed as refined TFP. To enable applicability of the technique to arbitrary geometries, a new boundary identification technique is developed. The new method is demonstrated with some example problems. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.