Efficient Simulation of Bragg Grating Sensors for Implementation to Structural Health Monitoring of Composites

Abstract

The goal of a structural health monitoring system is to detect, locate, and identify damages in a structure during its lifetime. The concept of structural health monitoring is particularly important for fiber reinforced composites due to the complexity of the possible failure mechanisms. The goal of this thesis is to simulate the response of optical fiber Bragg grating sensors to multi-component loading for their implementation in structural health monitoring algorithms for composites. A simulation method is presented to determine the effects of axial, bending and shear loading on an embedded optical fiber Bragg grating sensor. The effect of fiber bending on the Bragg grating sensor is experimentally verified by embedding the sensor in a solid cone, clamped at the base and subjected to a point load at the apex. Next, a numerically efficient method to calculate the response of sensors embedded in a unidirectional composite is developed using both finite element analysis and optimal shear-lag theory and taking into account the above effects. The limitations of the optimal shear-lag theory are derived through comparison with the finite element results. The application of this method is demonstrated through a numerical example, simulating the response of sensors embedded in one fiber layer to a transverse crack. This work is a first step towards the development of embedded sensors for fiber-reinforced composites that are "self evaluating".