Fiber optic sensor design for chemical process and environmental monitoring

Ramani Mahendran, Dee Harris, Liwei Wang, Venkata Machavaram, Rongsheng Chen, Stephen Kukureka, Gerard Fernando

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

Cure monitoring is a term that is used to describe the cross-linking reactions in a thermosetting resin system. Advanced fiber reinforced composites are being used increasingly in a number of industrial sectors including aerospace, marine, sport, automotive and civil engineering. There is a general realization that the processing conditions that are used to manufacture the composites can have a major influence on its hot-wet mechanical properties. This paper is concerned with the design and demonstration of a number of sensor designs for in-situ cure monitoring of a model thermosetting resin system. Simple fixtures were constructed to enable a pair of cleaved optical fibers with a defined gap between the end-faces to be held in position. The resin system was introduced into this gap and the cure kinetics were followed by transmission infrared spectroscopy. A semi-empirical model was used to describe the cure process using the data obtained at different cure temperatures. The same sensor system was used to detect the ingress of moisture in the cured resin system.
Original languageEnglish
Article number64232S
JournalProceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
Volume6423
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2007
EventInternational Conference on Smart Materials and Nanotechnology in Engineering - Harbin, China
Duration: 1 Jul 20074 Jul 2007

Keywords

  • cure kinetics
  • FTIR
  • fiber optic chemical sensors

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