Software Implementation of the Virtual Fields Method

The virtual fields method is a tool dedicated to the identification of the mechanical properties of materials from full-field deformation measurements. It is now validated in elasticity and plasticity but one of the remaining problems is the fact that researchers wanting to use the method must invest significant time in order to programme the routines. To help them, a software called CamFit has been developed. The purpose of this paper is to present this software. It is based on MATLAB® and uses a graphical pre-processing interface to produce the geometry, the conditions on the virtual fields, to choose the type of behaviour etc... Then, series of displacement maps are uploaded and the identification is launched. Since no iterative solution of the direct problem is required, computation times are very small compared to updating techniques. An important step in the procedure is the smoothing of the displacement measurements to produce strains. FE based approximations are presently available in the software. The final purpose is to introduce the software onto the market. This will be done in the very near future.