Abstract
Technological advances have enabled the development of a number of optical fiber sensing methods over the last few years. The most prevalent optical technique involves the use of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors. These small, lightweight sensors have many attributes that enable their use for a number of measurement applications. Although much literature is available regarding the use of FBGs for laboratory level testing, few publications in the public domain exist of their use at the operational level. Therefore, this paper gives an overview of the implementation of FBG sensors for large scale structures and applications. For demonstration, a case study is presented in which FBGs were used to determine the deflected wing shape and the out-of-plane loads of a 5.5-m carbon-composite wing of an ultralight aerial vehicle. The in-plane strains from the 780 FBG sensors were used to obtain the out-of-plane loads as well as the wing shape at various load levels. The calculated out-of-plane displacements and loads were within 4.2% of the measured data. This study demonstrates a practical method in which direct measurements are used to obtain critical parameters from the high distribution of FBG sensors. This procedure can be used to obtain information for structural health monitoring applications to quantify healthy vs. unhealthy structures.
Highlights
Structural health monitoring (SHM) refers to the process of observing the structural and/or mechanical responses of a system over time for the purposes of damage detection and characterization.An effective SHM method can increase efficiency, reduce maintenance and inspection costs, and extend the service life of mechanical systems and structures
FBGstrains strainstotoobtain obtainthe the Theprimary primaryobjective objective of of this this study study was to use deflected wing shape and out-of-plane loads forfor a carbon composite wing subjected to to distributed and deflected wing shape and out-of-plane loads a carbon composite wing subjected distributed concentrated loads. loads
Strain measurements from 778 fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors were used to compute the wing shape and the out-of-plane load per sensor for the concentrated and distributed loading cases
Summary
Structural health monitoring (SHM) refers to the process of observing the structural and/or mechanical responses of a system over time for the purposes of damage detection and characterization.An effective SHM method can increase efficiency, reduce maintenance and inspection costs, and extend the service life of mechanical systems and structures. Structural health monitoring (SHM) refers to the process of observing the structural and/or mechanical responses of a system over time for the purposes of damage detection and characterization. An overview of literature in the field of optical methods indicates that fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor technology is considered a promising and commonly used method for evaluating and monitoring structural system response and damage detection [1]. A case study is presented to demonstrate a practical method in which direct measurements (strains from the high distribution of FBG sensors along the optical fibers) are used to obtain the wing shape, but Aerospace 2016, 3, 18; doi:10.3390/aerospace3030018 www.mdpi.com/journal/aerospace. The procedure can be used to obtain information for structural health monitoring applications
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