title: Detection, Localization and Quantification of Impact Events on a Stiffened Composite Panel with Embedded Fiber Bragg Grating Sensor Networks.
abstract: Nowadays, it is possible to manufacture smart composite materials with embedded fiber optic sensors. These sensors can be exploited during the composites' operating life to identify occurring damages such as delaminations. For composite materials adopted in the aviation and wind energy sector, delaminations are most often caused by impacts with external objects. The detection, localization and quantification of such impacts are therefore crucial for the prevention of catastrophic events. In this paper, we demonstrate the feasibility to perform impact identification in smart composite structures with embedded fiber optic sensors. For our analyses, we manufactured a carbon fiber reinforced plate in which we embedded a distributed network of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors. We impacted the plate with a modal hammer and we identified the impacts by processing the FBG data with an improved fast phase correlation (FPC) algorithm in combination with a variable selective least squares (VS-LS) inverse solver approach. A total of 164 impacts distributed on 41 possible impact locations were analyzed. We compared our methodology with the traditional P-Inv based approach. In terms of impact localization, our methodology performed better in 70.7% of the cases. An improvement on the impact time domain reconstruction was achieved in 95 . 1 % of the cases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials, Textiles and Chemical Engineering (MaTCh), Ghent University, Technologiepark 903, 9052 Zwijnaarde, Belgium. Alfredo.Lamberti@UGent.be.
authors.forename: Alfredo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lamberti
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials, Textiles and Chemical Engineering (MaTCh), Ghent University, Technologiepark 903, 9052 Zwijnaarde, Belgium. geert.luyckx@ugent.be.
authors.forename: Geert
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Luyckx
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials, Textiles and Chemical Engineering (MaTCh), Ghent University, Technologiepark 903, 9052 Zwijnaarde, Belgium. wim.vanpaepegem@ugent.be.
authors.forename: Wim
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Van Paepegem
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Elsene, Belgium. arezayat@vub.ac.be.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rezayat
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Applied Engineering, University of Antwerp, Campus Hoboken Salesianenlaan 90, 2660 Antwerp, Belgium. Steve.Vanlanduit@uantwerpen.be.
authors.forename: Steve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vanlanduit
keywords: composite materials; fiber Bragg grating; impact identification; inverse methods; optical sensing