A fiber-optic epoxy cure monitoring technique for efficient wind turbine blade manufacturing and monitoring is presented. To optimize manufacturing cycle, fiber-optic sensors are embedded in composite materials of wind turbine blades. The reflection spectra of the sensors indicate the onset of gelification and the completion of epoxy curing. After manufacturing process, the same sensors are utilized for in-field condition monitoring. Because of residual stresses and strain gradients from the curing process, the embedded sensors may experience distortions in reflection spectra, resulting in measurement errors. We applied a Gaussian curve-fitting algorithm to the distorted spectra, which substantially improved the measurement accuracy.

Date Published: 1 July 2015
PDF: 4 pages
Proc. SPIE 9655, Fifth Asia-Pacific Optical Sensors Conference, 96550L (1 July 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2184431

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9655:
Fifth Asia-Pacific Optical Sensors Conference
Byoungho Lee; Sang-Bae Lee; Yunjiang Rao, Editor(s)