Health monitoring of composite pressure vessels through omnidirectional buckypaper sensor array

Composite pressure vessels (COPV) are widely used in the aerospace field, where they experience a wide range of unpredictable operating conditions. However, the recent work remains at monitoring the structural health of the whole COPV without considering lamination. This article introduces a kind of buckypaper (BP) sensor that can be put into COPV for structural health monitoring without requiring their removal from service. Simultaneously, the introduction of a flexible printed circuit enables the omnidirectional BP sensor to monitor strain state changes in two directions at one time. It can also form a matrix monitoring area with fewer sensors and increase the survival rate. Before being applied to COPV, tensile experiments and fatigue cycle experiments were carried out. At hydraulic pressure tests, the BP sensor is embedded in the COPV to perform real-time strain monitoring in both the bile layer and fiber layer. The experimental result shows that the BP sensor can maintain a good response and response consistency for a long time. Therefore, the BP sensor can be used for health monitoring of COPV.

Automated summary

This study introduces a carbon fiber paper sensor that can be inserted into composite pressure vessels (COPV) for real-time monitoring. The sensor can monitor strain state changes in two directions simultaneously and can form a monitoring matrix with fewer sensors. Experimental results show that the sensor has a good response and response consistency to stress changes.