Cure Monitoring and Simulation of Textile CFRP by Optical Fiber Sensors

In the present study, Fresnel-based fiber-optic sensors were used for cure monitoring of textile FRP. First, degree-of-cure curves of resin were measured by the fiber-optic sensors and DSC analysis. Comparing the curves by fiber-optic sensors and DSC analysis, it appeared that the degree-of-cure curves by the two methods agreed well with each other. Second, the cure monitoring of textile CFRP was conducted with heating temperature of 80 degrees C. It was found that the degree-of-cure curve of CFRP was almost the same as that of matrix resin. Cure process simulation was conducted using a kinetic model obtained from DSC analysis and fiber-optic sensing. The simulated results showed good agreement with the experimental results. Moreover, it was confirmed that this method can be used for real-time simulation of degree-of-cure and control of molding temperature. Next, the GFRP which the temperature distribution occurred was conducted multi-point cure monitoring. It was able to measure the distribution of the degree of cure. It has been found that multi-points measurement of the degree-of-cure was useful to estimate distribution of degree of cure of FRP.