Electrical Resistance Change Method for Delamination Monitoring of CFRP Plates: Effect of Plate Scale

Since delamination is invisible or difficult to detect visually, the delamination causes low reliability of laminated composites for primary structures. To improve the low reliability, smart systems of delamination identifications in-service are desired. Recently, many researchers have employed an Electrical Resistance Change Method (ERCM) to detect the internal damages of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics (CFRP) laminates. The ERCM does not require expensive instruments. Author’s group has already experimentally investigated the applicability of the ERCM for monitoring delamination crack and matrix cracks. In the present paper, therefore, these results performed in the previous papers are briefly explained. These successful results enable us to monitor a lot of information of the CFRP laminates by means of the electrical resistance changes in many applications. In these previous papers, the plate type specimens are small. The effect of plate scale on ERCM is investigated in the present paper. 3-D FEM analyses are conducted to calculate the electrical potential changes caused by delamination for CFRP plates of different sizes and the applicability of ERCM to large CFRP structures is investigated