A polarization sensitive interferometer for stress analysis

Abstract

In the present work a polarisation sensitive trangular path interferometer is developed to analyse the photoelastic stress pattern. To increase the sensitivity of the proposed interferometer a birefringent lens is used as a longitudinal interferometer to generate background fringes. The stress-induced birefringence of the sample will modify the fringe pattern, which gives a method for measurement of stress distribution of the sample. The method has all the advantages of a common path interferometer.