Multi-Functional Intelligent Composite Structures: Design, Manufacturing and Applications

A special issue of Journal of Composites Science (ISSN 2504-477X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2022) | Viewed by 4701

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Structures and Composites Laboratory, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
Interests: multi-functional composites; multi-functional intelligent structures; structural health monitoring; battery health monitoring; machine learning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA
Interests: composite modeling; nondestructive evaluation; structural health monitoring; ultrasonic guided waves; finite element modeling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue aims to provide a forum for scientists and engineers to share and discuss their original findings or recent advances in multi-functional intelligent composite structures and their potential applications. It is envisioned that with the increasing demand of cyber-physical systems (CPS) for autonomy and autonomous systems, multi-functional intelligent composite structures will play a big role. CPS are a synergistic technology existing between physical and computational systems. Bio-inspired distributed sensors, actuators, and embedded devices are networked to sense, monitor, and control the physical system, whereas the cyber system provides an autonomous solution through artificial intelligence (AI).  Multi-functional composites have anisotropic properties that can be tailored for a particular application. Such advanced “engineered materials” are increasingly used in a wide range of applications (mechanical, civil or aerospace structures; energy devices such as fuel cells and batteries; and bio-medical components). The unique manufacturing processes can embed sensor networks within composites that act analogously to nervous systems and make the structures intelligent. The structures can provide a systemwide integrated solution of various sensing systems in a unified approach to building highly intelligent and fully autonomous systems to perform self-sensing, self-diagnostics, and autonomous control. However, the manufacturing methods must be (i) low cost to fabricate and easy to install, (ii) low weight and have no penalty to structural properties, and (iii) accurate and reliable in real-time. Successful and automated damage detection is also a key concern for composites in different applications. Composite structures are prone to various types of damage, including fiber breakage, matrix cracking, delamination, and impact damage. Barely visible impact damage (BVID) from low-velocity impact is the most prevalent type of damage found in composite structures. Due to the general anisotropic behavior and complex damage scenarios, the successful implementation of damage detection in aerospace composite structures is always challenging.

Therefore, papers on the design, manufacturing, and application of advanced multi-functional intelligent composite structures and the damage detection methods are particularly welcome.

Dr. Mohammad Faisal Haider
Dr. Hanfei Mei
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • Cyber-physical systems
  • Sensor networks
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Non-destructive evaluation
  • Structural health monitoring
  • Multi-functional composites
  • Manufacturing of composites

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

41 pages, 9863 KiB  
Review
A Review of Nanocarbon-Based Solutions for the Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Parts Used in Renewable Energies
by Antoine Lemartinel, Mickael Castro, Olivier Fouché, Julio-César De-Luca and Jean-François Feller
J. Compos. Sci. 2022, 6(2), 32; https://doi.org/10.3390/jcs6020032 - 19 Jan 2022
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 4006
Abstract
The growing demands for electrical energy, especially renewable, is boosting the development of wind turbines equipped with longer composite blades. To reduce the maintenance cost of such huge composite parts, the structural health monitoring (SHM) is an approach to anticipate and/or follow the [...] Read more.
The growing demands for electrical energy, especially renewable, is boosting the development of wind turbines equipped with longer composite blades. To reduce the maintenance cost of such huge composite parts, the structural health monitoring (SHM) is an approach to anticipate and/or follow the structural behaviour along time. Apart from the development of traditional non-destructive testing methods, in order to reduce the use of intrusive instrumentation there is a growing interest for the development of “self-sensing materials”. An interesting route to achieve this, can be to introduce carbon nanofillers such as nanotubes (CNT) in the composite structures, which enables to create systems that are sensitive to both strain and damage. This review aims at updating the state of the art of this topic so far. A first overview of the existing SHM techniques for thermoset based wind turbine blades composites is presented. Then, the use of self-sensing materials for strain and damage sensing is presented. Different strategies are overviewed and discussed, from the design of conductive composites such as carbon fibres reinforced polymers, to the elaboration of conductive nano-reinforced polymer composites. The origins of sensing mechanisms along with the percolation theory applied to nanofillers dispersed in polymer matrices are also detailed. Full article
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