An optical-based technique to obtain operating deflection shapes of structures with complex geometries

The dynamic characteristics of structures are conventionally obtained by exciting the structure using an impulse hammer or a mechanical shaker and measuring the response using uniaxial or multi-axial accelerometers. However, contact-based sensors can mass-load the structure and do not provide full-field data. Hence, obtaining the true dynamics of the structure using conventional sensors can be challenging. That makes test engineers seek different non-contact techniques that can provide full-field data without mass-loading the structure. Recently, stereo-photogrammetry and three-dimensional digital image correlation (3D DIC) have been adopted to collect operating data for structural analysis. These non-contact optical techniques provide a wealth of distributed data over the entire structure. However, the stereo-camera system is limited by the field-of-view of the cameras; a single pair of DIC cameras may not be able to provide deformation data for the entire structure. Hence, it is challenging to obtain the vibration characteristics of the entire structure. In the current work, a multi-view 3D DIC approach is used and validated to predict the vibrational characteristics of an automotive muffler with a complex structure. A pair of DIC cameras travels over the entire structure to capture the deformation of each field of view. The measured data includes the geometry and displacement data, which is later mapped into a global coordinate system. The measured data in the time domain for each field-of-view is transformed to the frequency domain to extract the operational deflection shapes and resonant frequencies for each field of view. The obtained deflection shapes are stitched together in the frequency domain to extract the operating deflection shapes and resonant frequencies of the automotive body panel with a complex structure. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.