Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Materials using Carbon Fiber Sensors

Structural health monitoring is being used in different engineering applications due to the economic benefits and the safety assurance that it may bring. It is crucial to the assessment of damages in structures by the use of any sensing elements. Since the method solely lies on detecting damage, various damage detection techniques are used, with each technique varying with the application. The importance of damage detection are obvious and many. In recent years, composite materials have had an increased growth as an alternative to current materials like metallic alloys. This is due to their very high strength and stiffness as well as low weight and easy shaping. Moreover, carbon fibers also display linear piezoresistive properties, permitting their use as strain sensors similar to standard strain gauges. This allows them to be used as a sensor for various applications such as damage detection, stress analysis and monitoring of manufacturing processes and quality. In this research, damage detection application of carbon fiber as a sensor will be studied. The different damages will be applied to the structure to get the response of each damage. The focus of this research will be on structural health monitoring of composite structures against damages using carbon fiber sensors. A multi-physics computational model will be developed for simulation of effect of damage against composite structures. This study will allow researchers to predict the behavior of the carbon fiber sensor in real life and it will serve as a basis for designing a carbon fiber to be used in different applications as a sensor.