Distributed Piezo-Optical Active Sensing for Damage Assessment in Composite Materials for Aerospace Application

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This project brings together supervisors with complementary research interests with the overarching aim of developing distributed piezo-optical active sensing for damage assessment in composite structures for aerospace applications. Structural health monitoring (SHM) of material performance is expected to be a key resource in continued safe, efficient and economically viable operation. However, development of new or advancement of SHM techniques relies on knowledge of the impact of material state on detection signals. Models that can predict the interaction of SHM signals with relevant material status could provide optimization or new directions for SHM development and deployment.Flaws may have been initiated in the composite structures due to material degradation resulting from service conditions and environmental attack or introduced during the manufacturing process. Though SHM techniques are being developed to detect service-induced flaws (e.g., delamination, disbonds, resin cracks.) in limited-access locations, majority of the techniques have to inspect the entire structural components in order to detect the presence of flaws, which is time-consuming and costly. A consensus approach that can identify "hot spots" in the subject component for efficient inspection has not yet been established.The project is highlighted with novel technologies including structural component evaluation using combined acoustic (passive) and ultrasonic (active) piezoelectric sensing, fibre Bragg gratings and distributed optical strain sensors. Together the proposed method can provide a sensing system that can timely interrogate the structural integrity for condition assessment and diagnosis of composite components and provide a game-changing technique of long-term online monitoring of critical structures