Use of Image Analysis in Determination of Strain Distribution During Geosynthetic Tensile Testing

Abstract

Determining the deformation response of geosynthetics under load is important in developing an in-depth understanding of the engineering behavior of these materials. Current strain determination methods employed as part of tensile tests mostly assume that the strain is uniform throughout the specimen and, hence, are incapable of determining local strains. Geosynthetics have occasionally been instrumented with strain gauges and extensometers; however, these direct contact methods have limitations in fully defining strain distributions in a test specimen. Recent technological advancements in image analysis offer great potential for a more accurate and noncontact method of determining strains. An image-based particle tracking method was used to define the strain distribution in various geosynthetics during wide-width tensile testing. The method used a block-based matching algorithm functioning under