No description available.

Graphene nanoplatelets have been introduced into the interphase between electrically insulating glass fibre and polymer matrix to functionalize the traditional composite. Owing to the distribution of network structure of GNPs, the interphase can transfer the signals about various internal change of material. Consequently, due to the novel bio-inspired overlapping structure, our GNPs-glass fibre shows a unique opportunity as a micro-scale multifunctional sensor. The following conclusions can be drawn from present research: • We prepared GNPs solution via a scalable and highly effective liquid-phase exfoliation method. This method produces high-quality, unoxidized graphene flakes from flake graphite. We control the thickness and size of GNPs by varying the centrifugation rate. • A simple fibre oriented capillary flow which can suppress ‘coffee ring’ effect to deposit GNPs onto the curved glass fibre surface. The GNPs form continuous fish scales like overlapping structure. • The electrical conductivity of our GNPs-glass fibre shows semiconductive property. The electrical resistance value scattering and the advancing contact angle value scattering indicate a uniform deposit structure. The uniform overlapping structure is a key factor for higher electrical conductivity compared with our previous work with CNTs. • The contact angles of our GNPs-glass fibre with water indicate that the GNPs are almost unoxidized, so the inert GNPs coating decreases the interfacial shears strength. • A micro scale GNPs-glass fibre sensor for gas sensing is achieved by deposit GNPs onto glass fibre surface. This sensor can be used to detect solvents vapours, such as water, ethanol and acetone. All these vapours work as electron acceptor when reacting with GNPs. The acetone shows the highest sensitivity (45000%) compared with water and ethanol. • The doping-dedoping of GNPs-glass fibres during adsorption-desorption cycles of acetone result in the efficient “break-junction” (GNPs lost electron carrier concentration) mechanism, which provides the possibility to fabricate the electrochemical “switch” in a simple and unique way. • The resistance of our GNPs-glass fibre shows exponential relationship with RH. This is attributed to two points. Firstly, the water vapours show similar exponential adsorption on carbon surface; secondly, the bandgap of GNPs increases with the increase of adsorbed water vapour concentration. • Due to the weak van der Waals interaction when water molecules are adsorbed on GNPs surface, our GNPs-glass fibre shows extreme fast response and recovery time with RH. It is potential for our GNPs-glass fibre being used to monitor the breath frequency. • Utilizing the negative temperature coefficient of GNPs, our GNPs-glass fibre can be used as temperature sensor with a sensing region of -150 to 30 °C. • Through the observed abnormal resistance change at a temperature of about – 18 °C, we discovered a phase change of the trance confined water in graphene layers. Based on the resistance change, we can study the interaction of water and carbon nanoparticles. • The bio-inspired novel overlapped multilayer structure of GNPs coating shows structural colours. Even more, our GNPs-glass fibre can be used to monitor the loading force in the interphase when it is embedded into epoxy resin. • Our GNPs-glass fibre shows an excellent piezoresistive property, the single GNPs-glass fibre shows a larger gauge factor than the commercial strains sensor. • The semiconductive interphase was formed when the GNPs-glass fibre was embedded in polymer matrix. This semiconductive interphase is very sensitive to the deformation of material, therefore, an in-situ strain sensor was manufactured to real-time monitor the microcracks in a composite instead of external sensors. The area of resistance ‘jump’ increase can be seen as the feature area for damage’s early warning. • Monitoring the resistance variation of the single fibre composite was conducted under cyclic loading with progressively increasing the strain peaks in order to further investigate the response of in-situ sensor to the interphase damage process. The deviation of resistance/strain when the stress is larger than 2 % highlights the accumulation of damage, which gives insight into the mechanism of resistance change.

No description available.

With regard to the space field, the number of the sensors has grown for a middle-sized spacecraft from more than 500 at the beginning of the twenty-first century [1] to several thousands for nowadays applications. Meanwhile, Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLVs) moved their steps from demonstrators to commercial working systems. As a result, Health Monitoring (HM) is conquered its own space in the field and sensors are the primary elements required for implementing a monitoring unit. The innovative concept of reusable rockets requires, from the point of view of HM implementation, not only the evaluation of the vehicle health status but also the prediction of the reusability of the individual subsystems w.r.t. the next launch cycle. Therefore, the goal of this work is divided in two parts. The former is to identify the most critical points for the development of reusable rockets, focusing on theoretical working conditions and analysis or failures. The latter is to discuss the sensing units useful for addressing the defined points, describing the possible innovative approaches for sensing the system conditions. Among them, piezoelectric units, fiber optics, imaging units, and conductive layers can be identified for enhancing the comprehension of the system working conditions.

Graphene nanoplatelets have been introduced into the interphase between electrically insulating glass fibre and polymer matrix to functionalize the traditional composite. Owing to the distribution of network structure of GNPs, the interphase can transfer the signals about various internal change of material. Consequently, due to the novel bio-inspired overlapping structure, our GNPs-glass fibre shows a unique opportunity as a micro-scale multifunctional sensor. The following conclusions can be drawn from present research: • We prepared GNPs solution via a scalable and highly effective liquid-phase exfoliation method. This method produces high-quality, unoxidized graphene flakes from flake graphite. We control the thickness and size of GNPs by varying the centrifugation rate. • A simple fibre oriented capillary flow which can suppress ‘coffee ring’ effect to deposit GNPs onto the curved glass fibre surface. The GNPs form continuous fish scales like overlapping structure. • The electrical conductivity of our GNPs-glass fibre shows semiconductive property. The electrical resistance value scattering and the advancing contact angle value scattering indicate a uniform deposit structure. The uniform overlapping structure is a key factor for higher electrical conductivity compared with our previous work with CNTs. • The contact angles of our GNPs-glass fibre with water indicate that the GNPs are almost unoxidized, so the inert GNPs coating decreases the interfacial shears strength. • A micro scale GNPs-glass fibre sensor for gas sensing is achieved by deposit GNPs onto glass fibre surface. This sensor can be used to detect solvents vapours, such as water, ethanol and acetone. All these vapours work as electron acceptor when reacting with GNPs. The acetone shows the highest sensitivity (45000%) compared with water and ethanol. • The doping-dedoping of GNPs-glass fibres during adsorption-desorption cycles of acetone result in the efficient “break-junction” (GNPs lost electron carrier concentration) mechanism, which provides the possibility to fabricate the electrochemical “switch” in a simple and unique way. • The resistance of our GNPs-glass fibre shows exponential relationship with RH. This is attributed to two points. Firstly, the water vapours show similar exponential adsorption on carbon surface; secondly, the bandgap of GNPs increases with the increase of adsorbed water vapour concentration. • Due to the weak van der Waals interaction when water molecules are adsorbed on GNPs surface, our GNPs-glass fibre shows extreme fast response and recovery time with RH. It is potential for our GNPs-glass fibre being used to monitor the breath frequency. • Utilizing the negative temperature coefficient of GNPs, our GNPs-glass fibre can be used as temperature sensor with a sensing region of -150 to 30 °C. • Through the observed abnormal resistance change at a temperature of about – 18 °C, we discovered a phase change of the trance confined water in graphene layers. Based on the resistance change, we can study the interaction of water and carbon nanoparticles. • The bio-inspired novel overlapped multilayer structure of GNPs coating shows structural colours. Even more, our GNPs-glass fibre can be used to monitor the loading force in the interphase when it is embedded into epoxy resin. • Our GNPs-glass fibre shows an excellent piezoresistive property, the single GNPs-glass fibre shows a larger gauge factor than the commercial strains sensor. • The semiconductive interphase was formed when the GNPs-glass fibre was embedded in polymer matrix. This semiconductive interphase is very sensitive to the deformation of material, therefore, an in-situ strain sensor was manufactured to real-time monitor the microcracks in a composite instead of external sensors. The area of resistance ‘jump’ increase can be seen as the feature area for damage’s early warning. • Monitoring the resistance variation of the single fibre composite was conducted under cyclic loading with progressively increasing the strain peaks in order to further investigate the response of in-situ sensor to the interphase damage process. The deviation of resistance/strain when the stress is larger than 2 % highlights the accumulation of damage, which gives insight into the mechanism of resistance change.