Fiber Optic Sensing Technologies for Smart Materials and Structures

摘要

From many points of view,fiber optic sensors are the ideal transducers for smart materials and structures.Being durable,stable and insensitive to external perturbations,they are particularly interesting for the long-term health assessment of structures.Thanks to their small size and compatibility,they can be embedded in conventional and advanced materials and composites.Many different fiber optic sensor technologies exist and offer a wide range of performances and suitability for different applications.The mostly used technologies include Fiber Bragg Gratings,interferometric sensors(SOFO)and Fabry-Perot sensors for local measurements,as well as Raman and Brillouin scattering sensors for distributed measurements.A number of these systems have matured to full commercial exploitation and routine application in structural health monitoring.This contribution reviews the most popular fiber optic sensing technologies,for local and distributed sensing,and briefly presents some significant application examples.