Informative light pulses of indicating polymer fiber-optic piezoelectroluminescent coatings upon indentation of rigid globular particles

Abstract

A mathematical model of operation of an indicating polymer coating with an embedded fiber-optic piezoelectroluminescent (PEL) sensor is developed for diagnosing multiple mechanical force actions by digital processing of an informative luminous flux at the output of the optical fiber of the sensor. Distributed force action is caused by a multipoint low-velocity impact of multiple rigid particles, e.g., hail impacts, and the indentation of particles across the outer surface of the coating. The results of the numerical modeling of the sequence of informative light pulses at the output of the optical fiber of the PEL sensor are presented. The effects of the amplitude of the control voltage at the sensor contacts and the possible intersections of the “perturbation zones” of the adjacent globular particles on the amplitude and shape of light pulses are identified via numerical analysis. The filtering of informative signals of the indicating PEL coating based on the control sensor voltage is studied to exclude the effect of insignificant (outside of the operational range) external mechanical actions on the detected informative light signal.