Designing Ferrite Impregnated Epoxy Actuators For Impact Damage Detection In Carbon Fibre Reinforced Composites

Carbon fibre reinforced polymers composites possess properties that outstrip their component parts, and are seeing increased adoption in sectors such as the aerospace industry. Due to their complex failure mechanisms, it is necessary to have structural health monitoring (SHM) in place. Previous work has shown the efficacy of magnetostrictive materials as damage detection actuators; issues such as their spatial sensitivity require improvement to progress their applicability in SHM. Another requirement is to demonstrate ease-of-fabrication in conjunction to damage detectability, and also to maintain a good weight-to-cost trade-off. In this paper we demonstrate a step-by-step approach to the fabrication and optimisation of an impregnated magnetostrictive epoxy matrix that aims to satisfy these requirements.