Structural Health Monitoring with fiber optic sensors

SHM is defined as the process of acquiring and analyzing data from on-board sensors to evaluate the health of a structure. Most common damages on aircrafts are local cracks and delaminations, that do not change strongly the overall strain field, but that will act as the failure initiation point. Fiber optic sensors act primarily as strain sensors, so unless damage happens very close to the sensor location, it may go undetected. Currently, three main approaches for detecting damage from strain measurements are being investigated: 1) High resolution fibre optic distributed sensing (OFDR Rayleigh scattering). 2) Strain mapping with a dense network of sensors. Statistical analysis tools, like PCA, have been successfully used. 3) Hybrid FBG/PZT systems. FBGs must detect the ultrasonic elastic waves.