NANOSTRUCTURED SELF-SENSING PIEZOELECTRIC COMPOSITE LAMINATE

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems need the integration of the composite laminate with bulky sensors, which often can dramatically reduce the inherent strength of the hosting material. In this work GLARE hybrid laminates (Glass Laminate Aluminum Reinforced Epoxy) were interleaved with PVDF-TrFE piezoelectric nanofibers and the aluminum sheets were exploited as electrodes to collect the piezoelectric signal. The nanostructured hybrid laminate so obtained is intrinsically a piezoelectric sensor, capable of detecting out-of-plane loads on its whole surface. Low-velocity impact tests were performed to investigate the real-time electrical response and impact resistance of the self-sensing laminate. A lumped electric model was applied to study and optimize the circuit electrical parameters and the sensing performances were evaluated in terms of linearity and spatial uniformity. The impact resistance was compared with the pristine non-self-sensing counterpart in terms of dynamic response and micrograph analysis.