Monitoring of Multidirectional and Cure-Induced Strain in CFRP Laminates Using FBG Sensors

Abstract

During the curing cycle, the residual stress has influence on cure-induced deformation for carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) laminates, which is highly susceptible to the ply design. Therefore, the change laws of strain and the effect of residual stress in CFRP laminates after curing, which is of great significance to ply design, were cleared by using the combining pattern of thermocouple and fibre Bragg grating (FBG) sensors. For the FBG sensors embedded with different directions in lay-up CFRP laminates, the temperature and strain in different directions of composite laminates were obtained in real-time. Monitoring results show that compared with strain in 45° direction, the carbon fibers (CF) act stronger to inhibit strain in 0° direction and weaker to inhibit strain in 90° direction of resin. After curing, the residual strain in 0° direction is tensile strain, and the residual strain in 45° direction and 90° direction are compressive strain. Meanwhile the value of residual strain in 90° direction is greater than that in 45° direction.