Metal matrix composites based on aluminum and optical fibers

Embedding optical fibers into structural components is a very promising technology for real time health monitoring. Recently the interest for producing low cost and reliable sensors is increased in the mechanical, civil and aerospace engineering community. In this work aluminum and polyimide coated optical fibers have been successfully embedded in different aluminum alloys by using both cast and colamination techniques. The studied samples have been subjected to the following tests: mechanical test and optical transmission tests to highlight the fiber integrity after the embedding process; metallographic observation of the fiber/matrix interface. It is also reported a preliminary interferometric test to show that the embedded optical fiber can be usefully used as a global sensor for measuring variations of the physical properties of the hosting material. The possibility of embedding optical fibers in aluminum alloys has been demostrated.