Detection of microscopic damages in composite laminates

Small-diameter fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors, of outside diameter 52 μm, have been developed by the authors and Hitachi Cable Ltd. for embedding inside a laminate without deterioration of the mechanical properties of the composite laminate. In this research, the small-diameter FBG sensor was embedded in the 0° ply of a CFRP cross-ply laminate for the detection of transverse cracks in the 90° ply. The reflection spectra from the FBG sensor were obtained at various tensile stresses. As a result of damage, the spectrum became broad and had some peaks with increase in the transverse crack density. Furthermore, theoretical calculation reproduced the change in the spectrum very well. These results show that small-diameter FBG sensors have the potential to detect the occurrence of transverse cracks through the change in the form of the spectrum, and to evaluate the transverse crack density quantitatively by the spectrum width.