A composite-appropriate integration method of thick functional components in fibre-reinforced plastics

Abstract

The use of integrated structural health monitoring systems for critical composite parts, such as wind turbine blades, fuselage and wing parts, is an promising approach to guarantee a safe and efficient operational lifetime of such components. Therefore, the integration of thick functional components like sensors, actuators and electronic components is often necessary. An optimal integration of such components should be ensured without material imperfections in the composite structure, i.e. voids and resin rich areas, and failure of the functional components. In this paper, first investigations were undertaken for a basic understanding of the mechanical performance of a fibre reinforced plastic component with integrated functional elements. The influence of different materials and treatment methods for the encapsulation of electronic components was experimentally investigated under static and dynamic loading tests. By means of a parametric finite element model, the effects of an encapsulation and various parameters such as the shape and orientation of the electronic components were examined. Several encapsulation variants were investigated in order to minimise the chance of failure initiations. Based both on experimental and numerical results, a preferred composite integration concept was selected for an electronic board and some first recommendations for an optimal integration were derived.

Phenomenological investigation of a carbon fibre based strain sensor with spatial resolution by means of time domain reflectometry

“…The material class of fibre reinforced plastics offers an especially high potential for the realisation of future in operando tasks. On the one hand, the layered structure of the fibre reinforced plastics as well as the moderate production parameters enable an embedding of necessary functional elements like sensors, actuators and electronic components in the material . On the other hand, fibre reinforced plastics are being used more frequently in safety‐relevant structures due to the high specific stiffness as well as the possibility to individually adjust the properties of the composite layup.…”

Function‐integrative Lightweight Engineering – Design Methods and Applications

“…Hence, the investigation of manufacturing methods suitable for the integration of thick electronic elements in composite structures is a necessary precondition for the design of rotor blades with integrated monitoring systems (see Fig. a) , . Furthermore, the spatial resolution of physical measuring characteristics is of important interest.…”

Influence of Gradual Damage on the Structural Dynamic Behaviour of Composite Rotors: Experimental Investigations

“…For the description of the gradual damage behaviour of composite rotors, caused by operational loads or unpredicted loads such as impacts, verified damage mechanics models for composite materials are already available [5,14]. Typical failure modes for composite rotors are mainly inter-fibre failure from in-plane loads [15] and a mixture of inter-fibre failure, delaminations and fibre failure from unexpected impact loads [16], as depicted in Figure 1.…”