Feasibility of introducing conductive strips on composites for large area structural health monitoring

• Main Author: Soh, Aik Meng.
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Aeronautical engineering::Materials of construction
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/45323
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The purpose of this report is to outline the experiments undertaken to study the feasibility of introducing a conductive strip to act as a sensor for structural health monitoring in composites. This method could potentially monitor large areas of a structure in real time. The first phase of experiments involved characterizing the EPOCYLTM NC E-128-02 resin (E resin) as well as determining the suitability of the resin for the project. The second phase of experiments involved designing a screen to print long strips of E resin and silver ink onto the glass fibres. The last phase of experiments involved testing the panels under simple loading conditions i.e. tensile test. The E Resin proved to have a viscosity too low to be suitable for printing on the cured glass fabric panel. Moreover, it has a very high resistivity that hindered resistance measurements by the Multimeter. Therefore, the silver ink was selected as the printing ink. It was found that the resistance was proportional to the strain experienced by the strip. Using this relationship, we can monitor the health of the strip by constantly measuring the resistance.