Structural Health Monitoring by Electrical Resistance Change Method

Structural health monitoring (SHM) is widely used to examine the structural integrity of a structure to improve safety considerations, minimize maintenance cost, and avoid sudden breakdowns that might occur under various loadings under service conditions. Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are widely used in aerospace, automotive, marine, energy, infrastructure, armor, and biomedical applications due to their high specific stiffness and strength, high degree of dimensional and thermal stability, and good resistance to corrosion. Thus, SHM of the damages developed in FRPs during service conditions is very crucial. However, traditionally used sensors for SHM in composites provide limited sensitivity and might negatively affect the structural integrity. Therefore, a self-sensing approach by evaluating the electrical resistance change (ERC) of FRPs has been successfully used by many researchers. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the ERC techniques using various nanoparticles such as graphene, carbon nanotube, expanded graphite, and carbon black.