Low velocity impact monitoring of composite wing structure under simulated wing loading condition using fiber Bragg grating sensors

A low velocity impact onto a composite structure can result in the occurrence of barely visible impact damage (BVID), which is difficult to detect. Therefore, the low velocity impact monitoring of composite structures is highly desirable for impact detection and localization. In this paper, low velocity impacts on a composite wing under a simulated wing loading condition were monitored using six multiplexed fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors and localized using error outlier based impact localization algorithm. The impact response signals from the FBG sensors were sampled at a rate of 100 kHz using high-speed interrogator. The impacts were localized with an average error of 18.4 mm.