DISTRIBUTED OPTICAL FIBER SENSORS

Carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) is a key component for support structure of observation satellites. Though CFRP provides high thermal stability (< 0.1 mu epsilon/degrees C), moisture absorption and desorption in the matrix resin significantly affect the dimension, resulting in observation performance degradation. Thus, it is important to investigate the mechanisms and suppress moisture effects based on the mechanisms. This study carried out moisture absorption and desorption tests to investigate moisture-induced strain in composite laminates. A distributed fiber-optic sensor system was utilized for strain measurement. The response clearly showed that the strain distributed in the thick sample, whereas strain changed identically in the thin one. Meanwhile, strain change was greater in the desorption test than in the absorption one both in the thin and thick samples. Future work will propose moisture prevention methods based on the insights obtained in this research, and evaluate the method using the measurement technique.