Burford, Mary Kathleen2014-03-142014-03-141996-08-19etd-10072005-094845http://hdl.handle.net/10919/45077Our motivation for this work is based on the need to monitor the cure and inservice health of composite materials. We describe the continuation of an effort to design a multi-functional fiber optic sensor which can be embedded in polymeric composite laminates for monitoring the degree of cure during its fabrication, as well as internal composite strains occurring post-cure.3 In short, this dual-purpose sensor combines the characteristics of a Fresnel reflectometer with those of the extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometer. For monitoring cure, a broadband source is used so the output intensity of the sensor is amplitude-modulated as the refractive index of the composite is increased during the polymerization process. Post-cure, a coherent light source is implemented so a. sinusoidal variation of the output signal occurs when strains within the composite cause the sensor output to be phase-modulated. We demonstrate the measurement of refractive index with the Fresnel reflectometer/EFPL and test it as an embedded refractive index monitor. Our experimental results demonstrate that the refractive index of 5-minute epoxy increases by approximately 2 % during the cure process. In addition, the sensor can be used as an interferometer to measure internal composite strains, where the phase difference between consecutive fringe peaks is one-half the wavelength of the source.xi, 69 leavesBTDapplication/pdfenIn Copyrightmaterial processingcure monitoringcompositesoptical sensorsfiber opticsLD5655.V855 1996.B874Thesishttp://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-10072005-094845/