Adhesion of Multifunctional Substrates for Integrated Cure Monitoring Film Sensors to Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers

During fiber composite production, the quality of the manufactured parts can be assured by measuring the progress of the curing reaction. Dielectric film sensors are particularly suitable for this measurement task, as they can quantify the degree of curing very specifically and locally. These sensors are usually manufactured on PI films, which can lead to delaminations after integration. Other authors report that this negative influence can be reduced by miniaturization and a suitable shaping of the sensors. This article pursues as an alternative, a novel approach to achieve a material closure instead of a geometrically generated form closure by choosing suitable thermoplastic materials. Thermoplastic films made of PEI, PES and PA6 are proposed as carrier substrates for thin film sensors. They are investigated with regard to their mechanical effects in FRP. The experiments show that the integration of PES and PEI in FRP has the best shear strength, but PA6 leads to a higher critical energy release rate during crack propagation in mode I. For PI, a locally strongly scattering critical energy release rate was observed. Neither in tensile nor in Compression After Impact (CAI) tests a significant influence of the films on these characteristic values could be proven.