Graphene coated smart fabrics for vartm process monitoring

The flow of resin must be monitored online using different types of sensing techniques in liquid composite moulding process. In this work, the piezo resistive nature of graphene coating is exploited for the flow monitoring and pressure measurements. The utility of the measurement process is demonstrated through several experiments. A non-conductive substrate, a 3D woven glass fabric, has been coated with conductive reduced graphene oxide and was subjected to mechanical compression, vacuum compaction and an actual VARTM cycle. The coated substrates become conductive with a finite resistance which changes under the applied loads and during the infusion process. The sensitivity of the coating is quite advocate for the monitoring the whole process. The use of graphene for monitoring an LCM process was successfully demonstrated. From the mechanical compression of the reinforcement to resin impregnation process, each step can be monitored using coated glass fabric.