Self-Sensing Fibre Reinforced Composites

This paper reports for the first time a demonstration of chemical process monitoring of conventional glass fibre reinforced composites where the reinforcing fibres themselves act as the optical fibre sensors. These fibres were used to study in real-time, the rate of chemical reaction between an epoxy resin and an amine hardener. These reinforcing fibre light guides were also subsequently used to study, in situ, the fracture sequence of the reinforcing fibres. This was achieved by imaging one end of the fibre bundle whilst illuminating the opposite end.