COST-EFFECTIVE NANO METALLIC NICKEL SYNTHESIS AND NOVEL ELECTRO-LESS COATING ON GLASS FIBRE WITH PONTENTIAL APPLICATION FOR STRAIN AND DAMAGE MONITORING FOR POLYMER COMPOSITES

摘要

Polymer matrix composite is widely used i» various industries as important structural components. Unlike metals, strain induced and damage states.of an anisotropic composite are hard to predict under real time loading. With that focus, a piezoresistivity material based Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) system for laminated polymer composite is proposed in this invention with potential to measure the strain induced in the composite under real time loading. In this innovation, nano metallic nickel is synthesis using chemical reduction from Nickel Chloride (NiCh) in a cost effective manner and an novel electro-less dip coating method is proposed to coat these nano metallic nickel particles on the glass fibre to make the coated glass fibre nanocomposite as piezoresistivity strain sensor. This novel electro-less dip coating, is a simple and cheapest coating technique when compare to other technique such as Sputtering. Spray pyrolysis. etc. Nano metallic nickel coated glass fibre nanocomposite act as piezoresistivity sensor, where the resistivity of coated glass fibre changes with respect to the externally applied loading and corresponding strain. Thus with these potential sensing capabilities nano metallic nickel coated glass fibre nano composites can be used to measure the strain/stress and the degree of damage in it under real time loading. Further nano metallic nickel coated glass fibre nanocomposites can be embedded into the polymer composite to measure the strain/stress and degree of damage of the polymer composites under real time loading.