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Structural Health Monitoring of Polymer Composites

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Advanced Composites".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 June 2024 | Viewed by 4550

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
IMT Nord Europe, Institut Mines Télécom, University of Lille, Centre for Materials and Processes, F-59653 Villeneuve d’Ascq, France
Interests: advanced composites; polymer composites; composites manufacturing and properties; polymer processing and properties; advanced manufacturing; additive manufacturing and 3D printing; structural health monitoring; recycling; bio-based polymers and composites
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Guest Editor
IMT Nord Europe, Institut Mines-Télécom, University of Lille, Centre for Materials and Processes, Douai, France
Interests: nondestructive testing; structural health monitoring; mechanics of materials; advanced composites; polymer composites; damage; durability

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nondestructive testing (NDT) techniques are usually used for the characterization of defects arising in composite materials during manufacturing or during in-service use. NDT techniques such as ultrasonic waves, X-ray radiography, X-ray tomography, infrared thermography, and acoustic emission are the most commonly used in various industrial applications. Each of these NDT techniques has its own detection and characterization potential. Thus, depending on the damage mechanism involved, the part geometry, and the in-situ conditions of use, one technique may be preferred over another, or several techniques may be combined in order to improve the diagnosis of the damage state of composite structures and to allow a reliable monitoring of the material’s or component’s structural health in view of in-service performance assessment and residual durability prognosis.

This Special Issue welcomes papers (original research articles, state-of-the art reviews, short communications, perspectives, viewpoints, opinions, concept papers, or case reports) on the latest advances and developments in nondestructive detection, characterization, and health monitoring of structural composite materials and composite structures. Suggested contributions may address materials, processing, sensing/monitoring, modeling/simulation, performance, or application issues, with either experimental or numerical approaches. Articles providing guidelines and drawing future perspectives on how the structural health monitoring of these materials could evolve in the digital era, taking advantage of artificial intelligence, data fusion, and big data, would also be highly appreciated.

Prof. Dr. Patricia Krawczak
Prof. Dr. Salim Chaki
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • nondestructive testing
  • structural health monitoring
  • ultrasonic waves
  • X-ray radiography
  • X-ray tomography
  • infrared thermography
  • acoustic emission
  • shearography
  • digital image correlation
  • terahertz imaging
  • embedded sensors and actuators
  • hybrid nondestructive characterization
  • data fusion
  • defect detection and characterization
  • damage evaluation
  • residual lifetime prediction
  • predictive maintenance
  • advanced composites
  • polymer composites
  • composite structures

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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20 pages, 2536 KiB  
Article
Percolation in Carbon Nanotube-Reinforced Polymers for Strain-Sensing Applications: Computational Investigation on Carbon Nanotube Distribution, Curvature, and Aggregation
by Alessandro Pontefisso and Michele Zappalorto
Materials 2023, 16(14), 4959; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16144959 - 12 Jul 2023
Viewed by 800
Abstract
The present article investigates the possibility of simulating the electrical conductivity of carbon nanotube-reinforced polymer composites by numerical methods. Periodic representative volume elements are generated by randomly distributing perfectly conductive reinforcements in an insulating matrix and are used to assemble an electrical network [...] Read more.
The present article investigates the possibility of simulating the electrical conductivity of carbon nanotube-reinforced polymer composites by numerical methods. Periodic representative volume elements are generated by randomly distributing perfectly conductive reinforcements in an insulating matrix and are used to assemble an electrical network representative of the nanocomposite, where the nanotube–nanotube contacts are considered equivalent resistors modeled by means of Simmons’ equation. A comparison of the results with experimental data from the literature supports the conclusion that a random distribution of reinforcements is not suitable for simulating this class of materials since percolation thresholds and conductivity trends are different, with experimental percolation taking place before the expectations. Including nanotube curvature does not solve the issue, since it hinders percolation even further. In agreement with experimental observations, the investigation suggests that a suitable approach requires the inclusion of aggregation during the volume element generation to reduce the volume fraction required to reach percolation. Some solutions available in the literature to generate properly representative volume elements are thus listed. Concerning strain sensing, the results suggest that representative volume elements generated with random distributions overestimate the strain sensitivity of the actual composites. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structural Health Monitoring of Polymer Composites)
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18 pages, 5140 KiB  
Opinion
Non-Destructive Health Monitoring of Structural Polymer Composites: Trends and Perspectives in the Digital Era
by Salim Chaki and Patricia Krawczak
Materials 2022, 15(21), 7838; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15217838 - 06 Nov 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2431
Abstract
Non-destructive testing (NDT) techniques are usually used for the characterisation of defects arising in polymer composites during manufacturing or in-service use. However, each of these NDT techniques cannot always allow a full diagnosis of the material’s or component’s structural health. Thus, several techniques [...] Read more.
Non-destructive testing (NDT) techniques are usually used for the characterisation of defects arising in polymer composites during manufacturing or in-service use. However, each of these NDT techniques cannot always allow a full diagnosis of the material’s or component’s structural health. Thus, several techniques have to be combined in order to improve the diagnosis of the damaged state of composite structures and their evolution during the part’s life span. This opinion paper proposes a critical overview of the use and applicability of these NDT techniques for the detection and characterisation of damage to structural composite materials in view of in-service performance assessment and residual durability prognosis. It also addresses some current trends of structural health monitoring (SHM) of these materials, such as sensor–actuator embedding and NDT data fusion, and draws future perspectives on how composite SHM could evolve in the digital era, taking advantage of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and big data to implement digital twins. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structural Health Monitoring of Polymer Composites)
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