A critical assessment of automatic photoelastic methods for the analysis of edge residual stresses in glass

The measurement of residual stresses is of great importance in the glass industry. The analysis of residual stresses in the glass is usually carried out by photoelastic methods since the glass is a photoelastic material. This article considers the determination of membrane residual stresses of glass plates by digital photoelasticity. In particular, it presents a critical assessment concerning the automated methods based on gray-field polariscope, spectral content analysis, phase shifting, RGB photoelasticity, ‘‘test fringes’’ methods and ‘‘tint plate’’ method. These methods can effectively automate manual methods currently specified in some standards.