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The widely used adhesive joining technique suffers from the drawback of being unable to be dismantled to examine for degradation. To counteract this weakness, several structural health monitoring (SHM) methods have been proposed to reveal the joint integrity status. Among these, doping the adhesive with carbon nanotubes to make the joint conductive and monitoring its electrical resistance change is a promising candidate as it is of relatively low cost and easy to implement. In this work, resistance change to monitor fatigue debonding of composite single-lap adhesive joints has been attempted. The debonded area, recorded with a liquid penetrant technique, related linearly to the fatigue life expended. However, it correlates with the resistance change in two different trends. Scanning electron microscopy on the fracture surface reveals that the two trends are associated with distinct failure micromechanisms. Implications of these observations on the practical use of the resistance change for SHM are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adhesive joints possess a number of advantages over traditional joining methods and are widely used in composite structures. Conventional non-destructive examination techniques do not readily reveal joint degradation before the formation of explicit defects. Embedded fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors and the resistance of carbon nanotube (CNT)-doped conductive joints have been proposed to monitor the structural integrity of adhesive joints. Both techniques will be employed and compared in the current work to monitor damage development in adhesive joints under tensile and cyclic fatigue loading. Most of the previous works took measurements under an applied load, which by itself will affect the monitoring signals without the presence of any damage. Moreover, most FBG works primarily relied on the peak shifting phenomenon for sensing. Degradation of adhesive and inter-facial defects will lead to non-uniform strain that may chirp the FBG spectrum, causing complications in the peak shifting measurement. In view of the above shortfalls, measurements are made at some low and fixed loads to preclude any unwanted effect due to the applied load. The whole FBG spectrum, instead of a single peak, will be used, and a quantitative parameter to describe spectrum changes is proposed for monitoring purposes. The extent of damage is revealed by a fluorescent penetrant and correlated with the monitoring signals. With these refined techniques, we hope to shed some light on the relative merits and limitations of the two techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quantitative analysis of cell surface antigens has attracted increasing attention due to the antigenic variation recognition that can facilitate early diagnoses. This paper presents a novel methodology based on the optical "cell-tearing" and the especially proposed "dilution regulations" to detect variations in cell surface antigens. The cell attaches to the corresponding antibody-coated slide surface. Then, the cell-binding firmness between a single cell and the functionalized surface is assayed by optically tearing using gradually reduced laser powers incorporated with serial antibody dilutions. Groups B and B3 of red blood cells (RBCs) were selected as the experiment subject. The results indicate that a higher dilution called for lower power to tear off the cell binding. According to the proposed relative-quantitative analysis theory, antigenic variation can be intuitively estimated by comparing the maximum allowable dilution folds. The estimation result shows good consistency with the finding in the literature. This study suggests a novel methodology for examining the variation in cell surface antigens, expected to be widely capable with potential sensor applications not only in biochemistry and biophysics, but also in the micro-/nano- engineering field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) based 1064 nm fiber ring laser with 63.56 dB optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) is demonstrated. The stable performance is measured for six hours with lasing peak variation of ≤±0.115 dB and wavelength variation of ≤±0.006 nm. Combining the fiber ring laser with fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs), the SOA based fiber ring laser is applied to sense stretch, squeeze, and temperature variation. The results show high linearity, which is suitable for interpolation method prediction and evaluation. A large dynamic range of up to 10 km is also demonstrated for remote sensing applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study introduces an innovative micromachine that enables precise measurement of the flow rate at the micron scale (μl/min) in microfluidic channel. It is fabricated by the state-of-the-art technique of two-photon polymerization and consists of: a rod-spring, a water-drop-shaped frame, and an indicator situated inside a microfluidic channel. The indicator is deflected by the flowing fluid while restrained by the spring to establish an equilibrium indication according to the flow rate. In the practical tests, the flow successfully agitates the spring in a proper deflection. The relationship between the flow rate and the deflection angle was calibrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT We proposed a remote pumped bidirectional C+L band fiber amplifier for wavelength division multiplexing passive optical network. A high-reflectivity pump reflector using three cascading fiber Bragg gratings is designed to reflect the residual pump power for L-band amplification. Both the gains for C-band and L-band are larger than 10.0 dB under −10 dBm launched power. Using the remote pumped bidirectional fiber amplifier, the power penalty is only 0.82 dB after 10 Gb/s, 24 km bidirectional transmission. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 55:2553-2556, 2013 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adhesive joints in composite structures are subject to degradation by elevated temperature and moisture. Moisture absorption leads to swelling, plasticization, weakening of the interface, interfacial defects/cracking and reduction in strength. Moisture and material degradation before the formation of defects are not readily revealed by conventional non-destructive examination techniques. Embedded fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors can reflect the swelling strain in adhesive joints and offer an economical alternative for on-line monitoring of moisture absorption under hygrothermal aging. Most of the available works relied on the peak shifting phenomenon for sensing. Degradation of adhesive and interfacial defects will lead to non-uniform strain that may chirp the FBG spectrum, causing complications in the peak shifting measurement. It is reasoned that the full spectral responses may be more revealing regarding the joint's integrity. Studies on this aspect are still lacking. In this work, single-lap joint composite specimens with embedded FBGs are soaked in 60 °C water for 30 days. Spectrum evolution during this period and subsequent tensile and fatigue failure has been studied to shed some light on the possible use of the full spectral response to monitor the development of hygrothermal degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although adhesive joining has many advantages over traditional joining techniques, their integrity is more difficult to examine and monitor. Serious structural failures might follow if adhesive joint degradation goes undetected. Available non-destructive examination (NDE) methods to detect defects are helpful in discovering defective joints during fabrication. For long-term monitoring of joint integrity, many of these NDE techniques are prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to carry out. Recently, fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors have been shown to be able to reflect strain in adhesive joints and offer an economical alternative for on-line monitoring. Most of the available works relied on the peak shifting phenomenon for sensing and studies on the use of full spectral responses for joint integrity monitoring are still lacking. Damage and disbonding inside an adhesive joint will give rise to non-uniform strain field that may chirp the FBG spectrum. It is reasoned that the full spectral responses may reveal the damage status inside the adhesive joints. In this work, FBGs are embedded in composite-to-composite single lap joints. Tensile and fatigue loading to joint failure have been applied, and the peak splitting and broadening of the full spectral responses from the embedded FBGs are shown to reflect the onset and development of damages. A parameter to quantify the change in the spectral responses has been proposed and independent assessment of the damage monitoring capability has been verified with post-damage fatigue tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT An L-band tunable linear cavity fiber laser using a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) and wavelength reflector as cavity ends is investigated. A four-lamina composite device is used to facilitate tunable wavelength with 0.1-nm tuning resolution. Two strain-tunable FBGs are demonstrated with whole tuning range from 1574.5 to 1602.4 nm. A stable lasing output power at 1582.0 nm has 11.5 mW threshold pump power and 59 dB side-mode suppression ratio, respectively, using 10 M erbium-doped fiber and 100 mW pump power. The measured slope efficiency is 12.2% corresponding to 13.0% of quantum efficiency . © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:2681-2683, 2014 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lattice structures are superior to stochastic foams in mechanical properties and are finding increasing applications. Their properties can be tailored in a wide range through adjusting the design and dimensions of the unit cell, changing the constituent materials as well as forming into hierarchical structures. In order to achieve more levels of hierarchy, the dimensions of the fundamental lattice have to be small enough. Although lattice size of several microns can be fabricated using the two-photon polymerization technique, sophisticated and costly equipment is required. To balance cost and performance, a low-cost high resolution micro-stereolithographic system has been developed in this work based on a commercial digital light processing (DLP) projector. Unit cell lengths as small as 100 μm have been successfully fabricated. Decreasing the unit cell size from 150 to 100 μm increased the compressive stiffness by 26%. Different pretreatments to facilitate the electroless plating of nickel on the lattice structure have been attempted. A pretreatment of dip coating in a graphene suspension is the most successful and increased the strength and stiffness by 5.3 and 3.6 times, respectively. Even a very light and incomplete nickel plating in the interior has increase the structural stiffness and strength by more than twofold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For structures vulnerable to foreign object impact damages, it would be desirable to detect and locate any occurrence of such impacts. This can be achieved by monitoring the stress waves generated by an impact together with certain source localization algorithms. Being small, electromagnetic influence immune and durable, Fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors are advantageous for this task. One drawback of FBGs for this purpose is their uneven directional sensitivity, which limits its localization ability to within 50° on either side of the fiber axis. Beyond this range, the signal is too weak and masked by noises and the location errors increase abruptly. Two approaches have been tested on a 0.8 m × 0.8 m × 6 mm plate for possible improvement on the system accuracy: firstly, an interrogation scheme with stronger light source intensity and steeper edge filter is employed to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio and system sensitivity; secondly, rosettes with two orthogonal FBGs are cascaded together to replace single FBGs to alleviate the directional sensitivity problem. It was found that a four-fold increase in signal to noise ratio contributed by stronger light source does improve the location accuracy, but only marginally. For the rosette approach, the relative positions of the Bragg wavelength of the FBGs and the light source spectrum are crucial to accuracy. Three different wavelength configurations have been tested and the reasons for their success or failure are discussed. It was shown that with an optimal wavelength configuration, the rosette array can virtually extend the good location accuracy to all over the plate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two-photon polymerization enables the extremely high resolution three-dimensional printing of micro-structures. To know the mechanical properties, and better still, to be able to adjust them is of paramount importance to ensuring the proper structural integrity of the printed products. In this work, the Young's modulus is measured on two-photon polymerized micro-cantilever bars. Optimizing the scanning trajectory of the laser focus points is important in alleviating distortion of the printed bars. By increasing the laser power and decreasing the inter-voxel distances we can double the Young's modulus. Post-curing with ultraviolet light can approximately quadruple the Young's modulus. However, the resulting modulus is still only about 0.3% of that of the bulk polymerized material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]