A Comparative Study on the Textile Processing of Carbon and Multifunctional Glass Fiber Sensor Yarns for Structural Health Monitoring

In this comparative study two sensor yarns, such as carbon filament yarns and carbon nanotube coated glass filament yarns are analyzed regarding their electrical property changes during textile manufacturing into multi‐layer weft knitted structures as well as during compression molding into a composite plate due to the different electro‐mechanical behavior, various sensitivities, and changing ways of acting as an in‐situ sensor: yarns act either as a conductive fiber itself (carbon) or as an electrical conductive sizing (CNT‐coated glass). Both sensor yarns under investigation have to be considered differently with regard to changes in the electrical conductivity due to mechanical loading during textile processing and possible healing of cracks during compression molding.