New Materials

A development with a great deal of potential, at least in the military field, is the production of so‐called ‘intelligent skins’. The technology for these will form part of that required for smart structures, that is those that contain sensors and actuators embedded within the laminate with built‐in signal processing and adaptive control. The intelligent skin is a step towards this technology since it contains fibre optic sensors that can be used to sense strain, temperature, deformation, pressure and other conditions. If the sensor does not need to be embedded or is to be used on metallic structures, the fibre optics can be adhered to the surface.