Paper number 1330

ADVANCED COMPOSITES FOR SMART STRUCTURES

Georges Akhras

Department of Civil Engineering,
Royal Military College of Canada,
Kingston, Ontario, Canada, K7K 5L0

Summary Many advanced composite materials have been proposed for smart structures. Beside the aramid, glass and carbon fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) used to replace steel bars, strands, wires or tendons in the structures, FRP panels, membranes and textiles are more and more used in all type of structures.
In the last few years, research has been conducted in the area of advanced composites to be used as smart materials for smart structures. Smart structures and materials are defined as systems which have two basic functions: the first is to sense any external stimuli and the second to respond to that stimuli in some appropriate ways in real or near real time. This intelligent health monitoring is very beneficial to aerospace, mechanical or civil structures. The use of advanced composites for reinforcement as well as for sensing and actuating purposes combined with sophisticated data acquisition and monitoring apparatus has been proposed. This paper examines the sensing and actuating functions as an added value to advanced composites to be used in smart structures and evaluates their potential implications in improving the performance of the structure.
Keywords smart materials, adaptive structures, sensors, actuators, FRP, fibre optics.

Theme : Smart Materials and Smart Manufacturing

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