LATAM-SHM-2026

Energy Harvesting and Sensing Performance of Flexible Nanocomposites: Driving towards Self-sustainable devices for Structural Health Monitoring

  • Aepuru, Radhamanohar (Universidad de Chile)
  • Ñancupil, Fransisco (Universidad de Chile)
  • Kumar, Kishore (Universidad de Chile)
  • Alexander Soto, Matías (Universidad de Chile)
  • Bhaviripudi, Vijayabhaskar Rao (Universidad Tecnologica Metropolitana)
  • Akbari, Ali (Universidad de Chile)
  • Meruane, Viviana (Universidad de Chile)

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Most of the engineering structures are frequently exposed to and are susceptible to dynamic loading. Assessing them over their useful life for damage detection and prevention is thus important for their safety and serviceability. Structural health monitoring (SHM) is the key enabling approach that makes this possible, providing relevant estimates of the state of their structural health, detecting the damage and predicting the remaining useful life of the structure. [1-3] The SHM systems typically rely on the sensors especially for built-infrastructure. While the power demand of these sensors and what they attempt to measure (e.g. acceleration, strain) remain relatively similar for obtaining and transferring signals [4]. The traditional sensors still rely on the bias voltage from the conventional batteries for power. Henceforth, the self-powered sensors for SHM is desirable to avoid frequent maintenance, cost, and uneconomic to the current-energy scenario. Energy harvesting (EH) will be one of the key enabling technologies for the Internet of Things (IoT) to realize self-powered sensors. This technique allows for the powering of wireless sensors and low-power electronics in general, exploiting environmentally available energy. The work demonstrates the flexible nanocomposites with enhanced piezoelectric properties due to the beta-phase in the polymeric nanocomposites those required for the sensing applications. The structural and microscopic analyse will be demonstrated to know the crystalline and morphological behaviour of the nanocomposites. The analysis of the electrical output response of the energy harvesting based sensors shows that the electrical performance of nanocomposites increased significantly, with the maximum obtained peak-to-peak output voltage, which is equivalent to 3 times higher than the performance of pure polymer. The electromechanical sensing performance of the nanocomposites were tested at different frequencies under dynamic loading using an electrodynamic shaker. Further, the vibrations generated by the system are detected by the flexible EH sensor connected to the system and correlated with the commercial sensor to meet the real time applications.