Recently, an empirical model was established to predict the phototelastic response of a glass based on its composition and the crystalline structure of its constituents. In this work, the model was tested in detail by comparing the local structure assessed by a combination of nuclear magnetic resonance and Mossbauer spectroscopy with the model predictions and the measured photoelastic response. The system investigated was (SnO)x(P2O5)1-x. It was found that while the original simple model based on data on the pure components predicted the composition of the zero stress-optic glass to within about 15 mol%, inclusion of data on mixed systems, more reflective of the true glass structure, gave substantial improvement of the prediction. This finding further confirms the relation of local bonding structure to the photoelastic response of glass.
