Method for reducing the influence of quarter-wave plate errors in phase stepping photoelasticity

The phase stepping technique has recently been applied to the automated analysis of photoelastic fringes to determine the isoclinic parameter and the relative retardation. Generally, in these methods the error of quarter-wave plates, due to common manufacturing tolerances, influences the determination of the isoclinic parameter and the fringe order. In this paper a new phase stepping method in which the influence of quarter-wave plate error is null on the isoclinic parameter and negligible on the fringe order is proposed. The theoretical results have been confirmed by experimental tests.