Fiber-reinforced Composite Structures with Embedded Piezoelectric Sensors

Embedding of piezoelectric materials into fiber-reinforced composites is constituted as promising technology to develop ultra-sensitive structural health monitoring functionalities, e. g. strain measurement or acoustic emission testing. Here, we present latest results of embedding piezoelectric polymer foils into fiber-reinforced composite structures. The applied processing technique allows the implementation of several piezoelectric transducers at different positions within the fiber-reinforced composite. For studying the functionality non-destructive impact testing and three-point bending experiments were carried out to characterize the composite. Exemplarily, the functionality of the embedded sensors is demonstrated by means of triggering an embedded light emitting diode which is switched on after the piezoelectric transducer sensed mechanical strain