Health Monitoring of a Continuous Fiber Reinforced Aluminum Composite with Embedded Optical Fiber

The possibility of health monitoring of a continuous fiber reinforced aluminum composite with embedded optical fiber was demonstrated in this paper. Though quartz type optical fiber can be very damaging, it could be successfully embedded in a continuous fiber reinforced aluminum composite by the interphase forming/bonding method. The composite was bent or wear tested under monitoring of optical loss through the embedded optical fiber. In the case of bending, the optical transmission loss apparently increased when reinforcement fiber fractured by tension or compression. In the case of wear test, loss of reflected light from the sliding plane increased by roughening it. These results show that the embedded optical fiber can work as a health monitor of characteristic properties of the continuous fiber reinforced aluminum composite.