Proceedings Article | 20 April 2010
KEYWORDS: Fiber optics sensors, Sensors, Fiber Bragg gratings, Structured optical fibers, Prototyping, Temperature metrology, Temperature sensors, Failure analysis, Embedded systems, Structural health monitoring
Redondo Optics in collaboration with the Cortland Cable Company, TMT Laboratories, and Applied Fiber under a US
Navy SBIR project is developing an embedded distributed fiber optic sensor (EDIFOSTM) system for the real-time,
structural health monitoring, damage assessment, and lifetime prediction of next generation synthetic material arresting
gear cables. The EDIFOSTM system represents a new, highly robust and reliable, technology that can be use for the
structural damage assessment of critical cable infrastructures. The Navy is currently investigating the use of new, all-synthetic-
material arresting cables. The arresting cable is one of the most stressed components in the entire arresting gear
landing system. Synthetic rope materials offer higher performance in terms of the strength-to-weight characteristics,
which improves the arresting gear engine's performance resulting in reduced wind-over-deck requirements, higher
aircraft bring-back-weight capability, simplified operation, maintenance, supportability, and reduced life cycle costs.
While employing synthetic cables offers many advantages for the Navy's future needs, the unknown failure modes of
these cables remains a high technical risk. For these reasons, Redondo Optics is investigating the use of embedded fiber
optic sensors within the synthetic arresting cables to provide real-time structural assessment of the cable state, and to
inform the operator when a particular cable has suffered impact damage, is near failure, or is approaching the limit of its
service lifetime. To date, ROI and its collaborators have developed a technique for embedding multiple sensor fibers
within the strands of high performance synthetic material cables and use the embedded fiber sensors to monitor the
structural integrity of the cable structures during tensile and compressive loads exceeding over 175,000-lbsf without any
damage to the cable structure or the embedded fiber sensors.
