Abstract
Smart sensors and actuators have recently been developed. In this study, first, small-diameter fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors developed by the author, whose cladding and polyimide coating diameters were 40 and $52{\mu}m$, respectively, were embedded inside a laminate without resin-rich regions around sensors and the deterioration of mechanical properties of the composite laminate. The small-diameter FBG sensor was embedded in $0^{\circ}$ ply of a CFRP laminate for the detection of transverse cracks in $90^{\circ}$ ply of the laminate. The reflection spectra from the FBG sensor were measured at various tensile stresses. The spectrum became broad and had some peaks with an increase of the transverse crack density. Furthermore, the theoretical calculation reproduced the change in the spectrum very well. These results show that the small-diameter FBG sensors have a potential to detect the occurrence of transverse cracks through the change in the form of the spectrum, and to evaluate the transverse crack density quantitatively by the spectrum width. On the other hand, shape memory alloy (SMA) films were used to suppress the initiation and growth of transverse cracks in CFRP laminates. Pre-strained SMA films were embedded between laminas in CFRP laminates and then heated to introduce the recovery stress in SMA films and compressive stresses in the weakest plies ($90^{\circ}$ ply). The effects of recovery stresses are demonstrated in the experiments and well predicted using the shear-lag analysis and the nonlinear constitutive equation of SMA films.