Mechanical Properties Study for Optical Fibers

In recent years,optical fibers have been developed increasingly for sensor applications.In many of the applications,the optical fibers are embedded inside a matrix material for health monitoring.Researches have showed that the embedded optical fibers do affect the properties of fiber reinforced composites.According to Material theory,the interfaces between the optical fibers and the composite have influence to the characteristic of the composite. Research on the interface strength is important.Single-fiber pull out test was introduced for studying the interfaces between the embedded optical fiber and the composite.Based on the theory,the shear strength of the interface is related to the tensile strength of the optical fibers.Mechanical performance of optical fiber was studied.Firstly,both ends of the optical fiber were embedded in resin.The experimental Young′s modulus of the optical fiber is about 15GPa.Experiments shows slippage happened between the cladding and the coating.Secondly,winding clamp was used in order to know the tensile strength of the optical fiber.A hand-driven tensile machine for optical fiber tensile test was designed. According to experimental data,the tensile strength is 4.07 GPa.Microscope photo shows that the shear strength of the optical fiber is the smallest.