Fiber Optics for a Damage Assessment System for Fiber Reinforced Plastic Composite Structures

Damage Assessment for Composite Smart Structures

“…In the early work regular buffered multimode optical fiber (Corning 1516 with a diameter of 250 J.Uil) were employed and as a result was only capable on detecting quite severe damage [11 ]. Another factor contributing to the relative insensitivity of the optical fibers to damage was their alignment of the optical fibers parallel to the reinforcing fibers.…”

Damage Assessment for Composite Materials Based on Structurally Imbedded Optical Fibers and Image Enhanced Backlighting

“…6 revea1s an eno~ous di sparity between the thresho1 d impact energy for fracture of imbedded optica1 fibers that are in the sa~e 10cation but oriented different1y. Furthermore, using a comprehensive numerica1 model of the impact event, G10ssop [3J oredicts that the strain experienced by the optica1 fibers oriented paralle1 (n) to the adjacent material fibers shou1d be higher than that experi enced by thei r perpendi cu1 ar (1) counterparts. It is a1so obvious that a simple u1timate-strain theory over1ooks the presence of matrix cracks and delaminations.…”

Intelligent Structures Research at Virginia Tech

“…Arrays of attached or embedded fibers, for example, have been proposed to indicate impact damage and the multiple signals from such arrays inherently require some processing. If the breakage of optical fibers is intended to indicate damage location [22], then only simple on/off signal recognition at the output of each fiber is necessary and the time sequencing of input optical signals through multiple input fibers may be used to reduce the overall system electonics complexity.…”