A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Dual‐layer nanotube‐based smart skin for enhanced noncontact strain sensing
The remarkable optical properties of single‐walled carbon nanotubes suggest their use as nanoscale strain sensors. To help implement this idea as a practical technology, we have devised a new dual‐layer strain‐sensing smart skin. A submicron thick sensing layer of dilute, individualized nanotubes in poly(9,9‐di‐n‐octylfluorenyl‐2,7‐diyl) (PFO) polymer is deposited onto the substrate to be monitored and then overcoated with a transparent protective polymer layer. Subsequent substrate strains are transmitted to the nanotubes, altering their semiconducting band gaps and causing systematic shifts in their characteristic emission spectra. These shifts are recorded by irradiating a point on the surface with a small laser and capturing the resulting nanotube emission with a short‐wave infrared spectrometer. We found that consistency of film strain readings is significantly improved by thermal annealing of the deposited sensing layer before top coat application. Performance tests on a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) test specimen subjected to cyclic tensile stress show good strain sensing over the range from 0 to 2000 με. Further tests on a stressed copper plate demonstrate that this method can be used with point‐wise scanning to generate detailed two‐dimensional maps of accumulated strain. To our knowledge, such maps cannot be obtained using any other nonperturbing strain‐sensing method.
Dual‐layer nanotube‐based smart skin for enhanced noncontact strain sensing
The remarkable optical properties of single‐walled carbon nanotubes suggest their use as nanoscale strain sensors. To help implement this idea as a practical technology, we have devised a new dual‐layer strain‐sensing smart skin. A submicron thick sensing layer of dilute, individualized nanotubes in poly(9,9‐di‐n‐octylfluorenyl‐2,7‐diyl) (PFO) polymer is deposited onto the substrate to be monitored and then overcoated with a transparent protective polymer layer. Subsequent substrate strains are transmitted to the nanotubes, altering their semiconducting band gaps and causing systematic shifts in their characteristic emission spectra. These shifts are recorded by irradiating a point on the surface with a small laser and capturing the resulting nanotube emission with a short‐wave infrared spectrometer. We found that consistency of film strain readings is significantly improved by thermal annealing of the deposited sensing layer before top coat application. Performance tests on a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) test specimen subjected to cyclic tensile stress show good strain sensing over the range from 0 to 2000 με. Further tests on a stressed copper plate demonstrate that this method can be used with point‐wise scanning to generate detailed two‐dimensional maps of accumulated strain. To our knowledge, such maps cannot be obtained using any other nonperturbing strain‐sensing method.
Dual‐layer nanotube‐based smart skin for enhanced noncontact strain sensing
Sun, Peng (author) / Bachilo, Sergei M. (author) / Lin, Ching‐Wei (author) / Nagarajaiah, Satish (author) / Weisman, R. Bruce (author)
2019-01-01
1 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
| British Library Online Contents | 2007