Fiber Grating Sensor System to Determine Motor Case Damage

This Phase I SBIR will develop a fiber grating sensor system that is capable of locating and assessing damage on a composite rocket motor casing. Blue Road Research will use arrays of single and multi-axis fiber grating strain sensors to perform bothlocalization and detailed assessment of the damage using a series of fiber grating demodulation methods that allow multiplexing of large number of sensors as well as multidimensional strain field analysis. Specific areas that will be investigated willinclude delamination and breakage of fibers in the composite casing.This technology could be used to support damage assessment and health monitoring on a wide variety of aerospace platforms both military and commercial that employ composite materials.These structures could include wings and flight critical components on aircraft. It is also possible that this technology could be utilized on ships, bridges and other large structures where composite materials are playing an ever more important role.