Measurement of strain on concrete using an ordinary digital camera

Two-Dimensional Digital Image Correlation (2D-DIC) technique was applied in this

experimental study, to measure the steel–concrete bond strain at concrete surface.
The bond strain was caused by tensile force when it was subjected to embed
reinforced bar of concrete block in the pullout test. A series of digital images from
surface of concrete were taken by a semi-professional digital camera (Nikon D80)
during the loading. Acquired images were used as input data for two DIC software
to calculate deformation. After verifying the displacement results by measured LVDT
results, full-field strain components on concrete were calculated at various levels of
forces. The results show the measurement of displacement and strain by this
method are acceptable to a great extent.
The experimental setup and specimen preparation are quite simple. For recording
the digital images of specimen before and after deformation, only one fixed
Coupled-Charged Device (CCD) camera is needed. No special preparation of test
object is required except for spraying paint onto the surface of specimen. A white
light source or natural light can be used for illumination during loading. It does not
require a laser source. Since this method uses digital images as input data in analysis,
every digital image recorded by different high-spatial resolution digital image
acquisition devices can be processed in this technique. Nevertheless, the 2D-DIC
method also suffers from some weaknesses. Firstly, the surface of planar object
must have a random grey intensity. Secondly, the quality of imaging system has a
considerable effect on reliability of measurement. It is true that 2D-DIC is limited to
in-plane measurement technique, but with proper design of specimen shape, most
of the area can be studied for measuring the desired factors.
Generally, sources of error in this method are divided into two different groups;
testing error and analysis error. Errors in the first group are mainly due to the
specimen loading and imaging. There are four important factors that fall under this
group, namely speckle pattern, test object position, image distortions and noises. In
the second group, the four factors related to correlation algorithm have significant
influence: subset size, correlation criteria, interpolation scheme and shape function.