Electrical self-sensing of strain and damage of thermoplastic hierarchical composites subjected to monotonic and cyclic tensile loading

Electrical monitoring of strain and damage in multiscale hierarchical composites comprising unidirectional aramid fibers modified by multiwall carbon nanotubes and polypropylene as matrix is investigated. The key factor for electrical self-sensing in these thermoplastic composites is the formation of a multiwall carbon nanotube network, which is achieved by using two material architectures. In the first architecture, the multiwall carbon nanotubes are dispersed within the polypropylene matrix, while aramid fibers remain unmodified. The second architecture uses also multiwall carbon nanotube-modified polypropylene matrix, but the aramid fibers are also modified by depositing multiwall carbon nanotubes. Under tensile loading, the electrical response is nonlinear with strain (ε), and the piezoresistive sensitivity was quantified by gage factors corresponding to low (ε < 0.25%) and high (ε > 0.3%) strain regimes. Such gage factors were 4.83 (for ε < 0.25%) and 13.2 (for ε > 0.3%) for composites containing multiwall carbon nanotubes only in the polypropylene matrix. The composites containing multiwall carbon nanotubes in the matrix and fibers presented higher piezoresistive sensitivity, with average gage factors of 9.24 (ε < 0.25%) and 14.0 (ε > 0.3%). The higher sensitivity to strain and damage for a specific material architecture was also evident during cyclic and constant strain loading programs and is attributed to the preferential localization of multiwall carbon nanotubes in the hierarchical composite.