High-Speed DIC for Impact and Crash Testing
In impact, crash, and drop testing, failure can happen in milliseconds. A component may deform, buckle, crack, or absorb energy before the human eye can fully process what happened. For engineers, the challenge is not simply determining whether something failed, but understanding how it failed, where the critical deformation started, and how the structure behaved throughout the event.
Traditional sensors are useful, but they only measure where they are placed. A strain gage captures strain at one location. An accelerometer tracks motion at one point. A displacement sensor follows movement along a specific path. In dynamic testing, the most important behavior may occur somewhere unexpected.
High-speed Digital Image Correlation, or high-speed DIC, helps fill that gap by providing a full-field, non-contact view of how a part, material, or structure responds during fast-moving events. Instead of collecting data from only a few points, high-speed DIC measures deformation, displacement, strain, acceleration, and motion across the surface of the test article.