Investigation of FBG Sensor Performance in Detection of Delamination Damage in a Half-conical Shape Composite Component

Fibre reinforced polymers (FRP) being used in many critical applications in aerospace, automobile, marine and civil infrastructures due to their superior strength to weight ratio. The increased use of fibre reinforced polymers (FRP) composites for critical infrastructures has created urgent need of structural health monitoring (SHM) systems to ensure smooth and safe operation of the critical infrastructures. Damage detection in FRP structures using embedded FBG sensors is a widely researched area in SHM field. However, maximum utilization of FBG sensors for monitoring delamination cracks in FRP composite components is not fully utilized due to many engineering challenges at application level and also limited understanding of decoding the data obtained from FBG sensors. This paper details an experimental investigation of delamination in a conical shape structure using embedded FBG sensors. In addition to experimentation a detailed finite element analysis was performed. It has been found that FBG sensors data, the reflected spectra of FBG sensors have provided a good assessment of the delamination growth. Moreover, FEA analysis has shown a similar trend to experimental observations.