Vibration monitoring of carbon fiber composites by multiple fiber optic sensors

This work presents the comparison between the fiber Bragg grating technology and a vibration-measurement technique based on the detection of polarization rotation (polarimetric sensor) in a standard optical fiber, applied to the dynamic structural monitoring of carbon reinforced composites for the automotive industry. A carbon reinforced composite test plate in a 4-layer configuration was equipped with fiber Bragg gratings and polarimetric fiber sensors, then it was mechanically stressed by static and dynamic loads while monitoring the sensors response. The fiber Bragg grating setup exhibited 1.15±0.0016 pm/kg static load response and reproduced dynamic excitation with 0.1% frequency uncertainty, while the polarimetric sensing system exhibited a sensitivity of 1.74±0.001 mV/kg and reproduced the dynamic excitation with 0.5% frequency uncertainty. It is shown that the polarimetric sensor technology represents a cheap yet efficient alternative to the fiber Bragg grating sensors in the case of vibration-monitoring of small structures at high frequency.