On the use of a penalized least squares method to process kinematic full-field measurements

Abstract

This work is aimed at exploring the performances of an alternative procedure to smooth and differentiate full-field displacement measurements. After recalling the strategies currently used by the experimental mechanics community, a short overview of the available smoothing algorithms is drawn up and the requirements that such an algorithm has to fulfil to be applicable to process kinematic measurements are listed. A comparative study of the chosen algorithm is performed including the 2D penalized least squares method and two other commonly implemented strategies. The results obtained by penalized least squares are comparable in terms of quality to those produced by the two other algorithms, while the penalized least squares method appears to be the fastest and the most flexible. Unlike both other considered methods, it is possible with penalized least squares to automatically choose the parameter governing the amount of smoothing to apply. Unfortunately, it appears that this automation is not suitable for the proposed application since it does not lead to optimal strain maps. Finally, it is possible with this technique to perform the derivation to obtain strain maps before smoothing them (while the smoothing is normally applied to displacement maps before the differentiation) which can lead in some cases to a more effective reconstruction of the strain fields.