Uncertainty analysis of displacements measured by in-plane electronic speckle-pattern interferometry with spherical...

Displacement measurements by optical interferometry depend on the induced phase difference and on the interferometer's sensitivity vector; the latter depends in turn on the illuminating sources and on the geometry of the optical arrangement. We have performed an uncertainty analysis of the in-plane displacements measured by electronic speckle-pattern interferometry with spherical incident wave fronts. We induced the displacements by applying a uniaxial tensile load on a nominally flat elastic sample. We approached the displacement uncertainty by propagating the uncertainties that we considered reasonable to assign to the measured phase difference and to the characteristic parameters of the interferometer's sensitivity vector. Special attention was paid to evaluating contributions to the displacement uncertainty. Moreover, we observed that the uncertainty decreases if the angles of incidence and the source-target distances are increased.