Electrical capacitance and mechanical performances of embedded piezo-polymer transducers in polymer-matrix composites under monotonic tensile tests

In this study, the capacitance variation of piezoelectric polymeric transducers embedded in Polymer Matrix Composites (PMC) under monotonic tensile testing was studied. The aim was to draw out a comparison between the experimental and numerical results obtained via a high-order kinematics 2D model. In parallel, Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) including specimen temperature and Acoustic Emission (AE) signatures were obtained, and a Micro-tensile test was performed directly on the sensor material to further investigate the behaviour of capacitance of P(VDF-TRFE) films directly under tensile tests. The tensile tests were numerical modelled under static electro-mechanically coupled layer-wise 2D models. A sensitivity analysis was performed to determine the effects of the different parameters of the transducer. Under all the presented results, it was found that further investigation regarding the quantitative capacitance variation modelling needs to be carried out, as the presented modelling approach neglects capacitance non-linear behaviour, piezoelectric material discharge and the effects of capacitance measurement.