Real-Time Damage Detection of Honeycomb Sandwich Structures using Small-Diameter Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors

Abstract

The authors developed new techniques to detect inside damages in honeycomb sandwich structures using small-diameter optical fiber sensors. We embedded sensors in the adhesive layer between the core and the facesheet. From a decrease in the transmitted optical power and the change in the form of the reflection spectra from fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors, the debonding and the impact damage could be detected sensitively in real-time.