Instantaneous frequency and its application to strain extraction in moire interferometry

Moire interferometry is an effective experimental technique for measurement of in-plane deformation. However, it is information on the derivatives of the deformation, i.e., strains, that is usually desired in experimental mechanics. It is shown that the desired strains are the instantaneous frequencies of the fringe pattern and that either an energy operator or wavelet ridges can be used to extract the instantaneous frequencies from a single fringe pattern. The energy operator is a pixelwise processor; thus the strain extraction can be done on the fly, but it is sensitive to noise. The wavelet ridges extract the local features in the fringe pattern. The strain extraction is thus insensitive to noise and good results are obtainable at the cost of longer computation time. The two methods can thus be chosen for different needs in strain analysis. The properties of the two methods as well as their applications to a real fringe pattern are given. The effectiveness of the proposed methods is illustrated by their comparison with traditional methods. (C) 2003 Optical Society of America.