Life cycle strain monitoring of composite airframe structures by FBG sensors

Life cycle health monitoring technology for composite airframe structures based on strain mapping is proposed. It detects damages and deformation harmful to the structures by strain mapping using fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors through their life cycles including the stages of molding, machining, assembling, operation, and maintenance. In this paper, we firstly carried out a strain monitoring test of CFRP mock-up structure through the life cycle including the stage of molding, machining, assembling, and operation. The experimental result confirms that the strain which arises in each life cycle stage can be measured by FBG sensors embedded in molding stage and demonstrates the feasibility of life cycle structural health monitoring by using FBG sensors. Secondly, we conducted the strain monitoring test of CFRP scarf-repaired specimen subject to fatigue load. FBG sensors were embedded in the scarf-repaired part of the specimen and their reflection spectra were measured in uni-axial cyclic load test. Strain changes were compared with the pulse thermographic inspection. As a result, strain measured by FBG sensors changed sensitively with debonded area of repair patch, which demonstrates that the debondings of repair patches in scarf-repaired composites due to fatigue load can be detected by FBG sensors.