Progress on Carbon Nanotubes in Health Monitoring of Polymer Composites

Carbon nanotubes have a widely potential application in health monitoring of polymer composites due to the excellent electromechanical properties. Research advances in carbon nanotubes sensing in polymer composites are reviewed: carbon nanotubes filler, carbon nanotubes coated fiber, carbon nanotubes yarn and carbon nanotubes paper. This paper also focuses on the analysis of the common core principle of carbon nanotubes sensing,namely using carbon nanotubes sensing network to monitor structural strain injury. Carbon nanotubes paper can resolve problems such as the hard dispersion in the blending of carbon nanotubes and resin, the collaborative deformation of carbon nanotubes coated fiber and the whole structure monitoring of carbon nanotubes yarn. Carbon nanotubes paper provides the engineering application condition for carbon nanotubes sensing. The engineering application of carbon nanotubes sensing in health monitoring of polymer composites is the future research direction.