Application of Fiber Optics in Experimental Mechanics

While most of the stimulus for the rapid development and extensive deployment of optical fiber technology seen in recent years has come from the communications industry, many significant new applications are also being realized in areas directly relevant to experimental mechanics As will be described, both single and multi-mode flexible optical fiber elements, individually or in any of a variety of arrays, provide useful tools for many experimental mechanics ranging from illumination to excitation to image transmission to (even remote) sensing.