Strain and damage monitoring in solar-powered aircraft composite wing using fiber Bragg grating sensors

A solar powered aircraft is operated by converting solar energy into electrical energy. The wing of the solar powered aircraft requires a wide area to attach a number of solar cells in order to collect a large amount of solar energy. But the structural deformation and damage of the aircraft wing may occur because of bending and torsional loads induced by aerodynamic force during the operation. Therefore, the structural health monitoring of the wing is needed for increasing the operating time of the aircraft. In this study, the strain and damage of a composite wing of a solar powered aircraft were monitored by using fiber optic sensors until failure occurrence. In detail, a static loading experiment was performed on the composite wing with a length of 3.465m under a solar simulation environment, and the strain and acoustic emission (AE) of fracture signal were monitored by using fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors. In the results of the structural experiment, the damage occurred at a stringer when 4.5G load was applied to the composite wing, and the strain variations and AE signals were successfully measured by using FBG sensors. As a result, it is verified that the damage occurrence and location could be estimated by analyzing the strain variations and AE signals, and the fiber optic sensor would be a good transducer to monitor the structural status of a solar powered aircraft.