Abstract
Condition monitoring in polymer composites and structures based on continuous carbon fibers show overwhelming advantages over other potentially competitive sensing technologies in long-gauge measurements due to their great electromechanical behavior and excellent reinforcement property. Although carbon fibers have been developed as strain- or stress-sensing agents in composite structures through electrical resistance measurements, the electromechanical behavior under flexural loads in terms of different loading positions still lacks adequate research, which is the most common situation in practical applications. This study establishes the relationship between the fractional change in electrical resistance of carbon fibers and the external loads at different loading positions along the fibers’ longitudinal direction. An approach for real-time monitoring of flexural loads at different loading positions was presented simultaneously based on this relationship. The effectiveness and feasibility of the approach were verified by experiments on carbon fiber-embedded three-dimensional (3D) printed thermoplastic polymer beam. The error in using the provided approach to monitor the external loads at different loading positions was less than 1.28%. The study fully taps the potential of continuous carbon fibers as long-gauge sensory agents and reinforcement in the 3D-printed polymer structures.
Highlights
The monitoring of real-time conditions, including the sensing of strain or stress within a structure and the sensing of damage, plays a pivotal role in securing structural and operational safety or issuing early warnings on damage and deterioration
The electrical resistance response in terms of the external load is generally consistent and repeatable, which indicates a stabilization in carbon fiber sensing agents embedded in the 3D-printed polymer structures
This study explores using continuous carbon fibers embedded in 3D-printed polymer structures for self-monitoring of the external load at different loading positions
Summary
The monitoring of real-time conditions, including the sensing of strain or stress within a structure and the sensing of damage, plays a pivotal role in securing structural and operational safety or issuing early warnings on damage and deterioration. The electrical resistance of continuous carbon fibers increases or decreases reversibly upon tensile or compressive strain, but irreversibly upon damage This feature is believed to be ideally suited to monitor the real-time conditions of large-scale composites and structures. Multidirectional loading relations between the changes in electrical resistance and the measured strains based on the theory of anisotropic piezoresistivity for single-ply carbon fiber-reinforced plastics have been presented by Todoroki et al [36]. All these theoretical works are helpful for fundamentally understanding of the electromechanical behavior in carbon-fiber-based composites. The study extends the potential of the continuous carbon fiber as a long-gauge sensory agent and broadens its application for monitoring external load at different positions along the fibers’ longitudinal direction
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