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Monitoring of fuel tanks and toxic liquid containers with embedded long optical fibres makes it possible to determine their condition and to detect probable environmental risks. We present here measurements of microbending loss in long, single-mode and multi-mode telecommunication fibres installed inside the walls of composite containers during the manufacturing process. The measurements were performed by the optical through power technique and using a commercial optical time domain reflectometer. The measurement data indicate that the optical sensing fibres can detect the end of the curing process in the composite and the occurrence of external loading likely to damage the structure.

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