High-strain Fiber Bragg Gratings for Structural Fatigue Testing of Military Aircraft

Abstract

This paper reports on an experimental program of work which investigates the reliability, durability, and packaging of fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) for application as distributed strain sensors during structural fatigue testing of military platforms. The influence of the FBG fabrication process on sensor reliability is investigated. In addition, methodologies for broad-area packaging and surface-mounting of FBG sensing arrays to defense platforms are developed and tested.

Keywords

Fiber Bragg grating / draw tower grating / structural testing / strain sensor

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