Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) can be understood as the integration of sensing and intelligence to enable the structure loading and damage-provoking conditions to be recorded, analyzed, localized, and predicted in such a way that nondestructive testing becomes an integral part of them. In addition, SHM systems can include actuation devices to take proper reaction or correction actions. SHM sensing requirements are very well suited for the application of optical fiber sensors (OFS), in particular, to provide integrated, quasi-distributed or fully distributed technologies. In this tutorial, after a brief introduction of the basic SHM concepts, the main fiber optic techniques available for this application are reviewed, emphasizing the four most successful ones. Then, several examples of the use of OFS in real structures are also addressed, including those from the renewable energy, transportation, civil engineering and the oil and gas industry sectors. Finally, the most relevant current technical challenges and the key sector markets are identified. This paper provides a tutorial introduction, a comprehensive background on this subject and also a forecast of the future of OFS for SHM. In addition, some of the challenges to be faced in the near future are addressed.

Fiber Optic Sensors in Structural Health Monitoring

Nowadays, smart composite materials embed miniaturized sensors for structural health monitoring (SHM) in order to mitigate the risk of failure due to an overload or to unwanted inhomogeneity resulting from the fabrication process. Optical fiber sensors, and more particularly fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors, outperform traditional sensor technologies, as they are lightweight, small in size and offer convenient multiplexing capabilities with remote operation. They have thus been extensively associated to composite materials to study their behavior for further SHM purposes. This paper reviews the main challenges arising from the use of FBGs in composite materials. The focus will be made on issues related to temperature-strain discrimination, demodulation of the amplitude spectrum during and after the curing process as well as connection between the embedded optical fibers and the surroundings. The main strategies developed in each of these three topics will be summarized and compared, demonstrating the large progress that has been made in this field in the past few years.

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Fiber Bragg grating sensors toward structural health monitoring in composite materials: challenges and solutions.

Structural health monitoring (SHM) including the real-time cure monitoring and non-destructive evaluation (NDE) in-service is very important and definitely demanded for safely working of high performance composite structures in situ. It is very difficult to carry out by using conventional methods. A unique opportunity was provided to real-time monitor the health status of composite structures by using embedded fiber optic sensors (FOSs). In this paper, the extrinsic Fabry–Perot interferometer (EFPI) and fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors are real-time employed to simultaneously monitoring the cure process of CFRP composite laminates with and without damage. The results show that both embedded EFPI and FBG sensors could be used to monitor the cure progress of composite materials and detect the occurred damage on-line during the fabrication of composite structures. Furthermore, the NDE of smart composite laminates embedded both EFPI and FBG sensors are performed by using the three-point bending test. The experimental results present that the flexural strain of CFRP composite laminates with damage is more than that of CFRP laminates without damage under same load as we expected. Both EFPI and FBG sensors also show the excellent correlation during the cure monitoring and bending test.

Structural health monitoring of smart composite materials by using EFPI and FBG sensors

Development of fiber Bragg grating sensors for monitoring civil infrastructure

Real-time cure monitoring of composite materials is very important to improve the performance of advanced composite materials. It is very difficult to monitor the cure process online using conventional methods. Fiber optic sensors in smart composite materials provide a unique opportunity to monitor the cure process of composite materials in real time by using embedded sensors. In this paper, extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometer (EFPI) and fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors are embedded in carbon/epoxy composite laminates and used to monitor the cure process simultaneously. Furthermore, measurements of residual strains of composite laminates during the cure have been performed. The results show that both EFPI and FBG sensors can be used to monitor the strain development of composite laminates with and without damage during cure. An excellent correlation between the EFPI and FBG sensors is presented.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0964-1726/11/2/308/pdf

Real-time cure monitoring of smart composite materials using extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometer and fiber Bragg grating sensors

A sensor embedded in the composite laminate can act as a temperature transducer during the composite cure mechanism. Once the composite is cured, the same sensor can be used to provide the information about the mechanical changes that influence the performance of the material. Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensor is one such sensor which one can use for the composite cure monitoring. We present here the results obtained with an associated FBG sensor system for the cure monitoring of smart composites. The performance of the embedded FBG sensor smart composite specimens under 3- and 4-point bending conditions are also being investigated. Finally, the performance analysis has been extended to cantilever specimens.

L.K. Seah

Papers

Cure monitoring of smart composites using Fiber Bragg Grating based embedded sensors