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August 2007

Smart Fibres announces its Wx range of FBG interrogators

Smart Fibres is proud to announce its new Wx range of high-speed, FBG interrogators. Wx is a compact and highly robust instrument for dynamic measurement of FBG sensors. Applications include the structural health monitoring of aircraft and military platforms.

Wx was conceived to meet the needs of the EU defence research project AHMOS. During this project the intrinsic stability and reliability of the design have been proven through rigorous ground and fast jet flight tests.

The interrogator is based on a highly agile, tuneable laser source (1528 – 1568 nm) that is able to scan at a rate of 2.5 kHz over its full 40 nm range with a short-term repeatability of < 2 pm. By operating the Wx over a restricted wavelength range, higher scan frequencies are possible, for example, 5 kHz over a 20 nm range, 10 kHz over a 10 nm range, or 20 kHz over a 5 nm range. Further, onboard averaging (2, 4 or 8 times) enables the interrogator to operate at a reduced data rate with improved repeatability.

Initially Wx will be available with 1 to 4 optical channels, each channel capable of handling a maximum of 16 FBG sensors. Modular solutions with up to 16 optical channels are currently under development. Further details can be found on the Wx data sheet.

February 2007

Smart Fibres achieves ISO 9001 certification

Smart Fibres, the UK's pioneers of optical fibre sensing technologies, has achieved ISO 9001:2000 certification from Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance (LRQA). This new standard requires a process based approach to business and places increased emphasis on customer satisfaction.

LRQA auditing combines observation of work, review of records and face-to-face questioning of staff at all levels. During the assessment by the LRQA, a cross-section of Smart Fibres' business areas was heavily scrutinised to ensure the company's management systems and processes were not only in place, but also implemented across the whole of the organisation. LRQA was established in 1985 by internationally renowned Lloyd's Register. It pioneered modern day principles of quality assurance and is now acknowledged worldwide for reliability, integrity and innovation. View the certificate.

May 2006

First FBG ground anchor installation

This month saw the first installation of our SmartBar sensor in a geotechnical application to monitor the build up of strain within 20m concrete filled ground anchors as they were tensioned. The anchors were used to tether diaphragm walls to the ground rock within a new, multi-story, underground car park construction in Madrid, Spain. More information on this and some of our other projects are available via our references page.

April 2006

‘UpWind’ – The largest ever EU-funded wind energy research project gets under way

Over 100 wind energy specialists gathered in Brussels to kick off the largest ever long-term wind energy research project to receive funding from the EU. UpWind is an “Integrated Project” - a type of financing instrument introduced under the Sixth Framework Programme for R&D (FP6) – which involves some forty manufacturers, service providers, universities, research organisations and other professional organisations, who will together endeavour to explore and resolve design limits for very large wind turbines to be built after 2010.

With a budget of over €22million and EC funding of over €14 million, UpWind is the flagship of European collaborative research into wind turbine development, and is the result of a two year proposal process. It will last five years. Smart Fibres’ key role in the project is to develop and demonstrate its cost effective instrumentation based on FBGs for condition monitoring and control, for the requirements of next generation wind turbines of up to 20 MW. More information about this project and the partners is available via our UpWind page.

February 2006

Smart Fibres installed on the UK’s first composite motorway bridge

In collaboration with Strainstall UK, Smart Fibres is instrumenting an innovative road bridge over the M6 in Lancashire, UK. This is the first time that the Highways Agency has used fibre-reinforced polymers for road bridge construction on the trunk road network.

The new bridge is half the weight of the old bridge but twice as strong and far more durable. In order to obtain feedback on the design performance a comprehensive sensor system is being installed during construction and includes over 100 FBG sensors.

December 2005

Smart Fibres commissioned to instrument tidal energy turbine

Smart Fibres has won a contract from Marine Current Turbines (MCT) to instrument the blades and support pile of SeaGen, a 1MW tidal energy device set to be installed by MCT in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough in 2006. The £8.5m SeaGen project, supported by the DTI, will be the world’s first tidal stream energy scheme connected to an electricity network.

Smart Fibres is one of ten British engineering firms chosen by MCT to build SeaGen. Martin Wright, Managing Director of Marine Current Turbines said: “We require precision engineering and value for money and so we are delighted that Smart Fibres and a good number of other British firms are able to participate in this exciting project. The successful installation and operation of SeaGen in Northern Irish waters will be a catalyst for further development of marine energy in the UK. There is significant tidal resource in the UK waters to be harnessed”. For further information about SeaGen, please visit www.marineturbines.com

September 2005
Smart Fibres used in German bridge SHM Campaign
As part of our expanding applications portfolio of optical fibre sensing systems, this month saw the commissioning of a Smart Fibres instrumented road bridge across the Steinbach valley in Germany. Live load data from this bridge is continually recorded and logged and can be remotely accessed via a bespoke website where the Customer can carry out analysis and manipulation of the logged data. More information on this and some of our other projects are available via our references page.

August 2005

Smart Fibres T4 wind turbine rotorblade instrumentation commences long-term validation trials

This month saw the commissioning of a Smart Fibres T4 rotorblade load measurement system in a multi-megawatt wind turbine manufactured and operated by one of our new wind energy customers. This is a retrofit installation, with the T4 interrogator located within the rotating hub and connected to a number of SmartPatch sensors surface mounted to the inside of each blade.

The purpose of the installation is to validate the loads data collected by the system via back to back analysis with an electrical strain gauge system already installed. Also, the installation is made to verify the long-term suitability of the sensors, cabling and T4 instrumentation to the environmental conditions of an operating turbine. At the time of the last update to this webpage, having been in operation for over 6 months, the system is continuing to provide reliable load data to the customer’s data acquisition system and measuring loads that are consistent with those measured by the ESG reference.

February 2005

Smart Fibres participates in bruisable composite developments

With financial contribution provided under the UK Department of Trade and Industry Technology Programme, a new collaborative project entitled Bruisable Composites commenced this month. The project brief is to develop simple, low cost inspection techniques for large surface area, safety critical advanced composite structures using the concept of "bruisable composites", and new ways of modelling, testing and NDE monitoring. As FBG technology provided to the project, Smart Fibres will play a key role in monitoring internal composite damage with embedded fibre optic sensors, so as to validate the new damage detection methodology of bruising. Further details of the project and partners is available via our Bruisable Composites page

November 2004

AHMOS II collaborative aerospace follow-on project commences

Further to the successful completion of the European collaborative project AHMOS to develop an integrated structural health monitoring system for military aircraft and other military platforms, follow-on project AHMOS II commences this month.

Within this project, an integrated flying system incorporating the downselected sensor technologies will be developed, commissioned and tested on ground based platforms as well as two flying platforms, a BAE Systems Hawk and a Patria F-18. Smart Fibres is the FBG technology provided within AHMOS, and our system will be further developed for operation on the Hawk flying testbed. Further details of the project and partners is available at our AHMOS page.

October 2004

Smart Fibres used in James E Webb space telescope

This month saw the deployment of a Smart Fibres strain sensing system upon critical structural components of the James E Webb space telescope. The purpose of the instrumentation is to carry out laboratory validation of the structural performance of the components at deep space temperatures (towards 30 Kelvin), a task that is better suited to fibre sensors than more conventional electrical measurement technologies.

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