Evaluating and Minimizing Induced Microbending Losses in Optical Fiber Sensors Embedded Into Glass-Fiber Composites

Conventional silica optical fibers can be embedded into composite structures or packaging to provide structural monitoring capabilities. In this paper, the microbending optical losses induced by the packaging of a sensing optical fiber into a sandwiched glass-fiber reinforced structure are investigated experimentally and by simulations. Results show that the positioning of the optical fiber within...