Abstracts Book - IMRC 2018

• SE2-O053
INFLUENCE OF ELECTRODE CONFIGURATION ON DAMAGE
EVALUATION OF MULTISCALE COMPOSITE MATERIALS
Gabriela Carolina Uribe Riestra 1,2 , Jorge Andrés Ocampo Bello 1,3 , Fidel Fernando Gamboa
Perera 4 , Fernando Mendoza Santoyo 5 , Javier Iván Cauich Cupul 1 , Brian Kostadinov Shalon Isaac
Medina 1 , Alejandro May Pat 1 , Francis Avilés Cetina 1
1 Centro de Investigación Científica de Yucatán, Materials Department, Mexico. 2 Universidad
Autónoma de Yucatán, Physics Engineering Department, Mexico. 3 Universidad Autónoma de
Yucatán, Mechatronical Engineering Department, Mexico. 4 Centro de Investigación y de
Estudios Avanzados del IPN - CINVESTAV, Applied Physics Department, Mexico. 5 Centro de
Investigaciones en Optica, Optical Metrology Department, Mexico.
Fiber-reinforced polymer composites are used for automotive, aerospace and
wind energy applications, given to its improved mechanical properties and low
weight compared to monolithic materials. Despite their advantages, they
inevitably suffer damage during their service life, and such damage is difficult to
assess. For this reason, many damage detection techniques have been
developed to ensure the safety and integrity of composite structures. One of
these techniques comprises the inclusion of an electrically conductive filler such
as carbon nanotubes, which has rendered sensing functions to
multifunctional/multiscale polymer composites capable of detecting non-visible
damage such as incipient fiber rupture, debonding, delamination, and
propagation of cracks. Once the percolated network of carbon nanotubes is
formed inside the composite, measurement of the change of electrical
properties have proved to be a useful technique to detect, locate and quantify
the damage in this kind of multiscale composites. Alternatives to measure the
change of electrical resistance have been reported, using different electrode
configurations such as through-thickness and in-plane measurements, but
there is not yet a systematic analysis that allows interpretation of the different
results, or to choose the most sensitive direction for damage monitoring. Given
this motivation, the aim of this work is to study the electrical sensitivity of the
configuration of electrodes for damage monitoring in glass fiber/vinyl ester resin
composite plates under low-velocity impact loadings. A percolated network of
carbon nanotubes will be dispersed in the matrix and deposited on the fibers
for electrical damage detection. Electrode grids will be placed on both plate
surfaces and measurements of change of electrical resistance will be conducted
in three different configurations using a dedicated multiplexor, viz., on the top
surface, on the bottom surface, and through-thickness. Contour maps of the
normalized change of electrical resistance will be obtained after impact tests of