Tomographic Electrical Resistance-Based Damage Sensing in Nano-Engineered Composite Structures

Advanced composite materials are increasingly replacing metals in the aerospace industry as they offer weight-saving improvements such as high specific strength and stiffness, while providing resistance to fatigue and corrosion. Traditional advanced composites, however, exhibit significantly reduced electrical and thermal conductivity relative to metals, and matrix-rich regions at ply interfaces result in relatively poor interlaminar properties. Additionally, composites that have sustained damage often have non-visible or barely visible damage, complicating damage assessment. Recent efforts to address the limitations of advanced composites include the incorporation of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to take advantage of intrinsic and scale-dependent properties of these nanostructures.