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Glite Dictionary
photoelastic

photoelastic

9.9
A material that changes color or brightness when light passes through it under pressure
  • adjective
  • /ˌfoʊtoʊɪˈlæstɪk/
  • Specialized
: fotoelástico
  • In his experiment, he observed that the photoelastic plastic changed color under pressure.

Examples

  • Engineers test the strength of structures using photoelastic models to visualize stress patterns.

  • The AOM consists of a crystal made from a material with photoelastic properties.

    Academic text (1997)

  • Because of the photoelastic property, the propagating field within the crystal causes periodically spaced variations of the index of refraction.

    Academic text (1997)

  • The scientist used a photoelastic material to demonstrate how stress affects light transmission.

Surface Forms

photoelastic positive

Morphology

photoelastic = elastic (semi-transparent) = photo + elastic

The word is visibly built from the combining form photo- and elastic, but the specialized scientific meaning is not fully predictable from those parts alone.

Etymology

The word photoelastic breaks into photo- 'light' and elastic 'able to stretch'. So a photoelastic material is one that changes how it looks in light when you stretch or press it, which is why engineers use it to see stress patterns.