Fibre optic in-fibre Bragg grating sensors for use in composite material structural element characterisation and structural monitoring

An overview of our recent work on fibre optic sensor systems for structural element characterisation and monitoring is presented. The initial aim has been to explore the feasibility and utility of such fibre optic sensors, and to use them to improve measurements and to obtain results unobtainable by other means in application areas of interest. Two particular applications areas currently under study are the characterisation and testing of pultruded composite beams, and the shape reconstruction of composite panels. The motivation for these projects and their theoretical and experimental status are described. Fibre optic sensor systems to suit these applications have been developed; the main aspects of the development of an all-fibre passive demodulation scheme for in-fibre Bragg grating sensors are presented.