Extracting fracture properties from digital image and volume correlation displacement data: A review

Abstract

The advent of digital image and volume correlation has attracted wide use in fracture mechanics. The full‐field nature of digital image and volume correlation allows for the integration of computational fracture mechanics to analyse cracked samples quantitatively. This review provides a comprehensive overview of current methods used to extract fracture properties from full‐field displacement data. The term full‐field fracture mechanics is introduced to highlight the uniqueness of using inherently noisy experiential data to extract fracture properties. The review focuses on post‐processing‐based approaches rather than integrated approaches, as these have less limitations and are more commonly employed. There are four approaches that are discussed in extracting fracture properties from experimentally computed displacement data: field‐fitting, integral, crack‐opening and cohesive zone modelling approaches. This is further developed to discuss problems associated with using digital image and volume correlation to extract properties, including application examples.