Antonio Fernández López

This study presents a novel method based on ray tracing for analyzing wave propagation in composites specifically tailored for structural health monitoring applications. This method offers distinct advantages over the commonly used finite element method mainly in computational resource utilization, which has become a limiting factor for these kinds of analyses. The ray tracing method is evaluated against a number of example cases representing structural details such as thickness changes, stringers, or simulated damage, and the significance of ray tracing to study wave propagation under these conditions and how it can serve as a valuable tool for structural health monitoring are highlighted. This model has been developed as part of a complete SHM framework with the intention of being an efficient and simple way to calculate wave propagation and therefore it could be used as a way to determine relevant damage indicators or train an artificial intelligence model.

Despite several existing techniques for distributed sensing (temperature and strain) using standard Single-Mode optical Fiber (SMF), compensating or decoupling both effects is mandatory for many applications. Currently, most decoupling techniques require special optical fibers and are difficult to implement with high-spatial-resolution distributed techniques, such as OFDR. Therefore, this work’s objective is to study the feasibility of decoupling temperature and strain out of the readouts of a phase and polarization analyzer OFDR (ϕ-PA-OFDR) taken over an SMF. For this purpose, the readouts will be subjected to a study using several machine learning algorithms, among them Deep Neural Networks. The motivation that underlies this target is the current blockage in the widespread use of Fiber Optic Sensors in situations where both strain and temperature change, due to the coupled dependence of currently developed sensing methods. Instead of using other types of sensors or even other interrogation methods, the objective of this work is to analyze the available information in order to develop a sensing method capable of providing information about strain and temperature simultaneously.