Space Silicone Adhesive Monitoring Via Minimally Intrusive Optical Fibre Sensing During Vacuum UV/VUV Radiation Exposure

Abstract In this work a technique to monitor the health state of space adhesives during environmental testing is presented. Specifically, minimally intrusive Tilted Fibre Bragg Grating (TFBG) sensor was embedded in silicone adhesive Nusil CV16-2500 used to bond two thin cover glasses. The resulting solar cell assembly was then exposed to the UV/VUV radiation in a high vacuum chamber (less than 10 -5 mbar). The sensor is demonstrated that it was able to measure simultaneously the strain, temperature and refractive index of the adhesive. The three parameters measured with the TFBG, can be used to detect the thermomechanical and refractometric state of the silicone adhesive.