Monitoring of fatigue crack growth in composite adhesively bonded joints using Fiber Bragg Gratings

Optical sensors, like Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBG), can be easily embedded into composite structures, thus obtaining structures with health monitoring capabilities. In this work, fatigue crack growth in adhesively bonded joints of thick composite laminates was experimentally investigated using FBG. An array of equally spaced sensors was applied to the side of a single lap tapered joint, in order to simulate its embedment into the composite...