FUNDAMENTALS AND APPLICATIONS OF OPTICAL-FIBER BRAGG GRATING SENSORS TO TEXTILE STRUCTURAL COMPOSITES

In this paper, a review is given on the principles of optical fiber Br agg grating (FBG) sensors and their applications in textile structural composites (TSCs). As a class of novel all-fiber based components, FB G consists of a spatially periodic modulation in the refractive index along a short length of an optical fiber. FBG sensors are immune to el ectromagnetic interference, small in size, and easily embedded in a va riety of composite materials without compromising the host structures. They can be mass-produced in low cost and are unique in their sensing strategies for absolute wavelength coding and multiplexing. The intri nsic wavelength division multiplexing and localized sensing abilities of FBGs are their most important advantages as they provide an effecti ve means for monitoring physical parameters along a single fiber path. This ability to determine quantitatively internal distributions of ph ysical parameters within a TSC integrated with such sensors has been d emonstrated by a number of workers and will lead to a better understan ding of the relationship between the structure and physical properties . (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.