Development of a test simulator to perform optimized experiment design

Abstract

The use of full-field measurements in the identification of material properties is currently widespread due to advancements in the measurement techniques and in the identification methods. In this context, an interesting area which has not been systematically studied yet is the test design, i.e. the use of advanced design procedures to individuate optimized specimen geometries which give the best results in terms of quality of identification. Since it is very time and money consuming performing a test optimization with real specimens, the idea here is to build up a simulator able to correctly reproduce the images generated during an experimental acquisition starting from numerical models. A full-field measurement technique is then applied to the synthetic images and an identification procedure is performed. The quality of the identification can be checked looking at the parameters input in the numerical models, thus the geometry of the specimen can be iteratively varied to improve the effectiveness of the test. © The Society for Experimental Mechanics, Inc. 2013.