Damage detection in carbon fibre cross-ply laminates by aid of carbon nanotube doped resin

The possibility to use resistance variations of carbon nanotube (CNT) doped carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP) to characterise the level of microstructural damage in the form of transverse cracking is experimentally investigated in the current work. The resistance of CNT-doped and unmodified CFRP was measured after they had been subjected to stepwise increased tensile loading. Both increase and decrease resistance was observed which made it difficult to make any firm statement that the changes we observed were due to damage. The conductivity along carbon fibres is dominating electrical conductivity of the studied cross-ply laminate. Any disturbance of conductive CNT based nanocomposite matrix by transverse cracks in 90-layer therefore caused too small changes of resistance to be measured with current experimental setup.Godkänd; 2008; Bibliografisk uppgift: USB; 20081010 (joffe