Characterization And Performance Of Stress- And Damage-Sensing Smart Coatings

Mechanical enhancement of polymers with high modulus reinforcements, such as ceramic particles, has facilitated the development of structural composites with applications in the aerospace industry where strength to efficiency ratio is of significance. These modifiers have untapped multifunctional sensing capabilities that can be enabled by deploying these particles innovatively in polymer composites and as coatings. This chapter highlights some of the recent and novel findings in the development of piezospectroscopic particle-reinforced polymers as smart stressand damage-sensing coatings. The sections in this chapter describe the piezospectroscopic effect for alumina-based particulate composites, show the derivation of multiscale mechanics to quantify substrate stresses with piezospectroscopy, and demonstrate their performance in stress and damage sensing applied to a composite material. The noninvasive instrumentation is outlined and discussed for current and future applications in the industry ranging from manufacturing quality control to in-service damage inspections