10 pags., 4 figs., 1 tab. -- This article belongs to the Special Issue Distributed Optical Fiber Sensors: Applications and Technology ; In recent years, the use of highly flexible wings in aerial vehicles (e.g., aircraft or drones) has been attracting increasing interest, as they are lightweight, which can improve fuel-efficiency and distinct flight performances. Continuous wing monitoring can provide valuable information to prevent fatal failures and optimize aircraft control. In this paper, we demonstrate the capabilities of a distributed optical fiber sensor based on time-expanded phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (TE-ΦOTDR) technology for structural health monitoring of highly flexible wings, including static (i.e., bend and torsion), and dynamic (e.g., vibration) structural deformation. This distributed sensing technology provides a remarkable spatial resolution of 2 cm, with detection and processing bandwidths well under the MHz, arising as a novel, highly efficient monitoring methodology for this kind of structure. Conventional optical fibers were embedded in two highly flexible specimens that represented an aircraft wing, and different bending and twisting movements were detected and quantified with high sensitivity and minimal intrusiveness. ; This research was supported by the Comunidad de Madrid and FEDER Program under grant SINFOTON2-CM: P2018/NMT-4326, the European Research Council (OCEAN-DAS: ERC-2019-POC-875302), the Spanish Government under projects RTI2018-097957-B-C31, and RTI2018-097957-BC33. M.S.-A., H.F.M., J.P.-G. and M.R.F.-R. acknowledge financial support from the Spanish MICINN under contract no. PRE-2019-087444, IJCI-2017-33856, DI-17-09169 and IJC2018-035684-I, respectively. ; Peer reviewed


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    Title :

    Monitoring of a highly flexible aircraft model wing using time-expanded phase-sensitive OTDR



    Publication date :

    2021-05-28


    Remarks:

    1424-8220



    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



    Classification :

    DDC:    629




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