In-situ cure monitoring of wind turbine blades by using fiber bragg grating sensors and fresnel reflection measurement

A fiber-optic cure monitoring system is proposed to measure curing status of composite structure such as a large scale wind turbine blade. The monitoring is based on the measurement of Fresnel reflectivity at the optical fiber/epoxy resin interface. The refractive index of epoxy resin varies throughout curing stages, changing the Fresnel reflectivity. The curing status is decided by monitoring the reflected intensity variation. The usage of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor helps to separate the temperature-induced cross effects. A Gaussian curve fitting algorithm was applied to FBG spectra which were distorted in curing procedure. The substantial measurement errors could be minimized by locating the centroids of the Gaussian curve-fitted spectra. From the experiments performed in various isothermal conditions, the proposed system successfully identified the onset of gelation and the completion of curing of epoxy resins.