A Real time airworthiness assessment system for bonded composite repairs to cracked metallic structure is proposed and demonstrated. Patch debonding and crack propagation rates are monitored using a low spatial resolution Fiber-Bragg-Grating (FBG) sensor net, embedded in a co-cured composite patch. The FBG sensor net tracks changes in the strain field induced in the composite patch by the growing defects. By correlating these strain measurements with a numerical model, this sensing concept was able to identify and track patch debonding and crack propagation in real time with the required spatial resolution, which was much better than that of the sensor net.
展开▼
