Digital Image Correlation for Geomaterials

This book presents a non-contact framework for measuring deformation and identifying failure mechanisms in geomaterials using digital image correlation (DIC) and computer vision. It develops a multilevel finite element-based formulation (FEM-DIC), an extended formulation (X-DIC) that resolves discontinuous displacement fields across fractures, a smoothed particle hydrodynamics estimator for full-field strain, and an automated algorithm that detects and classifies damage zones. These methods converge on a dimensionless pre-failure indicator, ?, derived from the evolution of cumulative effective strain, which identifies the onset of yielding in concrete and rock specimens before failure becomes visible. Each method is validated against numerically generated speckle images with analytically known deformation fields and then applied to uniaxial compression experiments.