Strain sensing characteristic of ultrasonic excitation-fiber Bragg gratings damage detection technique

There are good prospects for development of ultrasonic excitation-fiber Bragg gratings (UE-FBGs) damage detection techniques in the field of Nondestructive Testing (NDT). However, corresponding strain sensing theories are few and only applicable to the embedded fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) sensors in composite structures. First, a four-cylinder sensing model for both the embedded and glued FBG sensors is established by introducing a surface-bonded effect coefficient obtained from simulation analysis in this paper. According to the shear-lag theory, an improved strain sensing function is derived from this model by considering the contribution made by the elastic modulus of host material. Then, based on above function, the strain sensing characteristics are analyzed. Finally, the system with an ultrasonic transducer to excite FBG and a demodulation device employing a tunable laser to detect FBG wavelength shifts was established to validate the theoretical analysis. The experiment results showed that the ultrasonic strain sensing ability of the FBG sensor decreased with the increase of ultrasonic frequency and glued thickness.

► A sensing model for both embedded and glued FBGs under ultrasound is established.
► A sensing function is given considering test material and surface bonded effects.
► Ultrasonic frequency and adhesive influences on sensing characteristic are analyzed.
► Experiments were carried out to validate above theoretical analysis.