Polymer Fibers Covered by Soft Multilayered Films for Sensing Applications in Composite Materials.

Dorian Nikoniuk,Grzegorz Krzesiński,Piotr Lesiak,Tomasz R. Woliński,Mateusz Olszyna,Maksymilian Sienkiewicz,Karolina Bednarska,Lars Dähne

doi:10.3390/s19184052

Dorian Nikoniuk, Grzegorz Krzesiński + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/s19184052

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Abstract

This paper presents the possibility of applying a soft polymer coating by means of a layer-by-layer (LbL) technique to highly birefringent polymer optical fibers designed for laminating in composite materials. In contrast to optical fibers made of pure silica glass, polymer optical fibers are manufactured without a soft polymer coating. In typical sensor applications, the absence of a buffer coating is an advantage. However, highly birefringent polymer optical fibers laminated in a composite material are much more sensitive to temperature changes than polymer optical fibers in a free space as a result of the thermal expansion of the composite material. To prevent this, we have covered highly birefringent polymer optical fibers with a soft polymer coating of different thickness and measured the temperature sensitivity of each solution. The results obtained show that the undesired temperature sensitivity of the laminated optical fiber decreases as the thickness of the coating layer increases.

Highlights

Traditional metallic alloy parts can be replaced with great success by composite materials
In order to protect optical fibers from polymerization shrinkage, we present the possibility of coating them with a soft polymer film by using the LbL technology and show that protected microstructured polymer optical fibers (mPOF) retain their properties after the lamination process
The observed change of birefringence under the influence of a temperature change (Table 3) was the strongest for optical fiber (a) and the smallest for optical fiber (b) (Figure 12). This is due to the fact that the additional stresses induced during the lamination process strengthened the birefringence of mPOF (a) and compensated for the birefringence of mPOF

Summary

Introduction

Traditional metallic alloy parts can be replaced with great success by composite materials. Their high strength, low weight, and cost effectiveness make them ideal candidates for manufacturing parts to be used in aviation, marine, and windmill industries [1,2,3]. The lamination process strongly influences the final properties of a polymer composite, for example its glass transition temperature or ultimate tensile strength. An ideal solution is in vivo monitoring of the lamination process to enable the introduction of instantaneous corrections. This would be possible if, for instance, fiber optic sensors are embedded directly in a composite material. Fiber optic sensors are highly sensitive to transverse deformations that arise during the production process of a composite material [4]

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