Dynamic Strain Measurements on Automotive and Aeronautic Composite Components by Means of Embedded Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors

Abstract

The measurement of the internal deformations occurring in real-life composite components is a very challenging task, especially for those components that are rather difficult to access. Optical fiber sensors can overcome such a problem, since they can be embedded in the composite materials and serve as in situ sensors. In this article, embedded optical fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors are used to analyze the vibration characteristics of two real-life composite components. The first component is a carbon fiber-reinforced polymer automotive control arm; the second is a glass fiber-reinforced polymer aeronautic hinge arm. The modal parameters of both components were estimated by processing the FBG signals with two interrogation techniques: the maximum detection and fast phase correlation algorithms were employed for the demodulation of the FBG signals; the Peak-Picking and PolyMax techniques were instead used for the parameter estimation. To validate the FBG outcomes, reference measurements were performed by means of a laser Doppler vibrometer. The analysis of the results showed that the FBG sensing capabilities were enhanced when the recently-introduced fast phase correlation algorithm was combined with the state-of-the-art PolyMax estimator curve fitting method. In this case, the FBGs provided the most accurate results, i.e., it was possible to fully characterize the vibration behavior of both composite components. When using more traditional interrogation algorithms (maximum detection) and modal parameter estimation techniques (Peak-Picking), some of the modes were not successfully identified.

RTM Production Monitoring of the A380 Hinge Arm Droop Nose Mechanism: A Multi-Sensor Approach

“…After production, the FBG sensor network was used to perform dynamic measurements in order to detect the first eigenfrequencies of the component and compare them with the one obtained from a well-established Laser Doppler Vibrometer modal analysis technique. The results are disclosed in the work of Lamberti et al [ 37 ].…”

Self‐Reporting Fiber‐Reinforced Composites That Mimic the Ability of Biological Materials to Sense and Report Damage

“…Copyright 2016, Elsevier. C) Adapted under the terms of CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons Attribution License . Copyright 2015, The Authors.…”

“…In other examples, sensors were placed at strategically selected places on rotor blades, which allowed bending loads to be monitored (Figure b), or to detect damage . Fiber‐optic Bragg grating sensors were also used in aeronautic and automotive composite components (Figure c) . The sensors were embedded into the composites during resin transfer molding.…”

Multifunctional Textile Platform for Fiber Optic Wearable Temperature-Monitoring Application

“…Recently, Bragg grating fabrication based on various materials or special fiber structure design is emerging rapidly [18][19][20][21], for instance, a chirped Bragg grating on microstructured polymethyl methacrylate fiber proposed by Korganbayev et al (2018) [22] that demonstrated excellent sensitivity for thermal profile detection; and some multicore fibers (MCFs) have been used as fiber optic three-dimensional shape sensors such as the helical MCF with continuous grating developed by Lally et al (2012) [23] for real-time shape sensing using the optical frequency domain reflectometry technique. Such sensors have been widely applied in civil engineering [24], healthcare medical devices [25,26], structural engineering [27,28], aerospace [29], oil and fuels [30], and harsh environments [31], among others.…”