Assessment of measuring errors in DIC using deformation fields generated by plastic FEA

In this article, systematic errors that arise from different implementations of digital image correlation (DIC) techniques are analyzed. In particular, we investigate the influence of the adopted correlation function, the interpolation order, the shape function and the subset size on the derived displacements. These errors are estimated using numerically deformed images that were obtained by imposing finite element (FE) displacement fields on an undeformed image yielding plastic deformation of the specimen. This FE procedure simulates realistic experimental heterogeneous deformations at various load steps. It is shown that DIC is able to reproduce these displacements up to a satisfactory level if conscious choices in the above-mentioned implementations are made. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.