Experimental Stress Analysis

Experimental stress analysis (ESA) is an integral part of the testing, verification, and design of aerospace structures at the NRC Institute for Aerospace Research (NRC Aerospace). The ESA facility complements NRC Aerospace's computational stress analysis capabilities with a variety of innovative techniques that can directly measure strain in structures under load. Each test set-up and specimen is unique, and NRC Aerospace is able to tailor the measurement technique to provide reliable and accurate data to its clients.

The ESA facility is constantly broadening its capabilities to meet the requirements of the most demanding tests and continues to push the boundaries of different techniques in stress analysis. Current technologies include: strain gauges, pressure sensitive film automated photoelasticity, digital image correlation and thermoelastic stress analysis.