Damage Monitoring of Composite Adhesive Joint Integrity Using Conductivity and Fiber Bragg Grating.

Adhesive joints possess a number of advantages over traditional joining methods and are widely used in composite structures. Conventional non-destructive examination techniques do not readily reveal joint degradation before the formation of explicit defects. Embedded fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors and the resistance of carbon nanotube (CNT)-doped conductive joints have been proposed to monitor the structural integrity of adhesive joints. Both techniques will be employed and compared in the current work to monitor damage development in adhesive joints under tensile and cyclic fatigue loading. Most of the previous works took measurements under an applied load, which by itself will affect the monitoring signals without the presence of any damage. Moreover, most FBG works primarily relied on the peak shifting phenomenon for sensing. Degradation of adhesive and inter-facial defects will lead to non-uniform strain that may chirp the FBG spectrum, causing complications in the peak shifting measurement. In view of the above shortfalls, measurements are made at some low and fixed loads to preclude any unwanted effect due to the applied load. The whole FBG spectrum, instead of a single peak, will be used, and a quantitative parameter to describe spectrum changes is proposed for monitoring purposes. The extent of damage is revealed by a fluorescent penetrant and correlated with the monitoring signals. With these refined techniques, we hope to shed some light on the relative merits and limitations of the two techniques.

A Novel Methodology for Detecting Variations in Cell Surface Antigens Using Cell-Tearing by Optical Tweezers.

The quantitative analysis of cell surface antigens has attracted increasing attention due to the antigenic variation recognition that can facilitate early diagnoses. This paper presents a novel methodology based on the optical "cell-tearing" and the especially proposed "dilution regulations" to detect variations in cell surface antigens. The cell attaches to the corresponding antibody-coated slide surface. Then, the cell-binding firmness between a single cell and the functionalized surface is assayed by optically tearing using gradually reduced laser powers incorporated with serial antibody dilutions. Groups B and B3 of red blood cells (RBCs) were selected as the experiment subject. The results indicate that a higher dilution called for lower power to tear off the cell binding. According to the proposed relative-quantitative analysis theory, antigenic variation can be intuitively estimated by comparing the maximum allowable dilution folds. The estimation result shows good consistency with the finding in the literature. This study suggests a novel methodology for examining the variation in cell surface antigens, expected to be widely capable with potential sensor applications not only in biochemistry and biophysics, but also in the micro-/nano- engineering field.

Hygrothermal Damage Monitoring of Composite Adhesive Joint Using the Full Spectral Response of Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors.

Adhesive joints in composite structures are subject to degradation by elevated temperature and moisture. Moisture absorption leads to swelling, plasticization, weakening of the interface, interfacial defects/cracking and reduction in strength. Moisture and material degradation before the formation of defects are not readily revealed by conventional non-destructive examination techniques. Embedded fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors can reflect the swelling strain in adhesive joints and offer an economical alternative for on-line monitoring of moisture absorption under hygrothermal aging. Most of the available works relied on the peak shifting phenomenon for sensing. Degradation of adhesive and interfacial defects will lead to non-uniform strain that may chirp the FBG spectrum, causing complications in the peak shifting measurement. It is reasoned that the full spectral responses may be more revealing regarding the joint's integrity. Studies on this aspect are still lacking. In this work, single-lap joint composite specimens with embedded FBGs are soaked in 60 °C water for 30 days. Spectrum evolution during this period and subsequent tensile and fatigue failure has been studied to shed some light on the possible use of the full spectral response to monitor the development of hygrothermal degradation.

Adhesive Joint Integrity Monitoring Using the Full Spectral Response of Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors.

Although adhesive joining has many advantages over traditional joining techniques, their integrity is more difficult to examine and monitor. Serious structural failures might follow if adhesive joint degradation goes undetected. Available non-destructive examination (NDE) methods to detect defects are helpful in discovering defective joints during fabrication. For long-term monitoring of joint integrity, many of these NDE techniques are prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to carry out. Recently, fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors have been shown to be able to reflect strain in adhesive joints and offer an economical alternative for on-line monitoring. Most of the available works relied on the peak shifting phenomenon for sensing and studies on the use of full spectral responses for joint integrity monitoring are still lacking. Damage and disbonding inside an adhesive joint will give rise to non-uniform strain field that may chirp the FBG spectrum. It is reasoned that the full spectral responses may reveal the damage status inside the adhesive joints. In this work, FBGs are embedded in composite-to-composite single lap joints. Tensile and fatigue loading to joint failure have been applied, and the peak splitting and broadening of the full spectral responses from the embedded FBGs are shown to reflect the onset and development of damages. A parameter to quantify the change in the spectral responses has been proposed and independent assessment of the damage monitoring capability has been verified with post-damage fatigue tests.

Fabrication and Compressive Behavior of a Micro-Lattice Composite by High Resolution DLP Stereolithography.

Lattice structures are superior to stochastic foams in mechanical properties and are finding increasing applications. Their properties can be tailored in a wide range through adjusting the design and dimensions of the unit cell, changing the constituent materials as well as forming into hierarchical structures. In order to achieve more levels of hierarchy, the dimensions of the fundamental lattice have to be small enough. Although lattice size of several microns can be fabricated using the two-photon polymerization technique, sophisticated and costly equipment is required. To balance cost and performance, a low-cost high resolution micro-stereolithographic system has been developed in this work based on a commercial digital light processing (DLP) projector. Unit cell lengths as small as 100 µm have been successfully fabricated. Decreasing the unit cell size from 150 to 100 µm increased the compressive stiffness by 26%. Different pretreatments to facilitate the electroless plating of nickel on the lattice structure have been attempted. A pretreatment of dip coating in a graphene suspension is the most successful and increased the strength and stiffness by 5.3 and 3.6 times, respectively. Even a very light and incomplete nickel plating in the interior has increase the structural stiffness and strength by more than twofold.

An Improved Impact Source Locating System Using FBG Rosette Array.

For structures vulnerable to foreign object impact damages, it would be desirable to detect and locate any occurrence of such impacts. This can be achieved by monitoring the stress waves generated by an impact together with certain source localization algorithms. Being small, electromagnetic influence immune and durable, Fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors are advantageous for this task. One drawback of FBGs for this purpose is their uneven directional sensitivity, which limits its localization ability to within 50° on either side of the fiber axis. Beyond this range, the signal is too weak and masked by noises and the location errors increase abruptly. Two approaches have been tested on a 0.8 m × 0.8 m × 6 mm plate for possible improvement on the system accuracy: firstly, an interrogation scheme with stronger light source intensity and steeper edge filter is employed to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio and system sensitivity; secondly, rosettes with two orthogonal FBGs are cascaded together to replace single FBGs to alleviate the directional sensitivity problem. It was found that a four-fold increase in signal to noise ratio contributed by stronger light source does improve the location accuracy, but only marginally. For the rosette approach, the relative positions of the Bragg wavelength of the FBGs and the light source spectrum are crucial to accuracy. Three different wavelength configurations have been tested and the reasons for their success or failure are discussed. It was shown that with an optimal wavelength configuration, the rosette array can virtually extend the good location accuracy to all over the plate.

Alleviating Distortion and Improving the Young's Modulus in Two-Photon Polymerization Fabrications.

Two-photon polymerization enables the extremely high resolution three-dimensional printing of micro-structures. To know the mechanical properties, and better still, to be able to adjust them is of paramount importance to ensuring the proper structural integrity of the printed products. In this work, the Young's modulus is measured on two-photon polymerized micro-cantilever bars. Optimizing the scanning trajectory of the laser focus points is important in alleviating distortion of the printed bars. By increasing the laser power and decreasing the inter-voxel distances we can double the Young's modulus. Post-curing with ultraviolet light can approximately quadruple the Young's modulus. However, the resulting modulus is still only about 0.3% of that of the bulk polymerized material.

Cyclic fatigue behavior of nickel-titanium dental rotary files in clinical simulated root canals.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: Dental rotary instruments can be applied in multiple conditions of canals, but unpredictable fatigue fracture may happen. This study evaluated the fatigue lives of two batches of nickel-titanium (NiTi) dental rotary files operating in clinically simulated root canals. METHODS: Single-step cyclic fatigue tests were carried out to assess the performance of two batches of NiTi files (ProTaper and ProFile) in nine combinations of simulated canals (cylinder radii 5 mm, 7.5 mm, and 10 mm, and insertion angles 20°, 40°, and 60°). Two-step cyclic fatigue tests were carried out in simulated root canals with the same radius by using the following two sets of insertion angles: (20°, 40°), (20°, 60°), (40°, 20°), and (60°, 20°). Fracture surfaces were observed by scanning electron microscopy. RESULTS: The single-step cyclic fatigue results showed that cyclic fatigue lives of the files decreased with increasing insertion angles or decreasing cylinder radius. The ProFile #25 .04 file was more fatigue resistant than the ProTaper F2 file. In two-step cyclic fatigue tests, the total fatigue lives were usually more than 100% when the files operated at a lower strain and then at a higher strain. By scanning electron microscopy, a larger area of fatigue striation corresponded to a longer fatigue life. CONCLUSION: Cyclic fatigue life can be influenced by the strains and geometries of files. The fatigue life was prolonged when the files operated at a lower strain and then at a higher strain. However, the fatigue life was shortened if the loading sequence was reversed.

Influence of heat treatment on cyclic fatigue and cutting efficiency of ProTaper Universal F2 instruments.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: Heat pretreatment can improve the cyclic fatigue life of nickel-titanium (NiTi) instruments. This study evaluated the effects of two different heat treatments on the cyclic fatigue resistance and cutting efficiency of ProTaper Universal F2 files. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The files were divided into three groups: no treatment (control), heat treatment at 400°C (HT400) and heat treatment at 600°C (HT600). The phase transformation of the files was evaluated by differential scanning calorimetry. In cyclic fatigue tests, the differences in file performance in four simulated canals among the three groups were assessed. The cutting efficiency was tested at four cutting portions (3 mm, 6 mm, 9 mm, and 12 mm) from the tip of the file. RESULTS: Differential scanning calorimetry showed a prolonged phase transformation of the files only after 600°C treatment. At 3 mm cutting portion, 400°C heat-treated files had significantly better cutting ability than those in the control group. However, the files in the HT600 group had significantly lower cutting efficiency than those in the other two groups at the four tested positions. In the cyclic fatigue test, fatigue lives of the files after 400°C and 600°C treatment were prolonged from 2.1 to 2.8 times and from 1.7 to 5.5 times, respectively. CONCLUSION: Although 600°C treatment increased resistance to cyclic fatigue, it reduced the cutting efficiency of the files. The 400°C treatment maintained the cutting ability and prolonged the cyclic fatigue life of the files. Therefore, for clinical use of ProTaper Universal F2 files, 400°C pretreatment is a better choice than 600°C pretreatment.

Post-impact fatigue damage monitoring using fiber Bragg grating sensors.

It has been shown that impact damage to composite materials can be revealed by embedded Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBG) as a broadening and splitting of the latter's characteristic narrow peak reflected spectrum. The current work further subjected the impact damaged composite to cyclic loading and found that the FBG spectrum gradually submerged into a rise of background intensity as internal damages progressed. By skipping the impact, directing the impact to positions away from the FBG and examining the extracted fibers, we concluded that the above change is not a result of deterioration/damage of the sensor. It is caused solely by the damages initiated in the composite by the impact and aggravated by fatigue loading. Evolution of the grating spectrum may therefore be used to monitor qualitatively the development of the incurred damages.

Application of nondestructive testing in cyclic fatigue evaluation of endodontic Ni-Ti rotary instruments.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the application of nondestructive testing in cyclic fatigue evaluation of endodontic ProFile nickel-titanium (NiTi) rotary instruments. As-received ProFile instruments were made to rotate freely in sloped metal blocks by a contra-angle handpiece mounted on a testing machine. Rotation was interrupted periodically, and the instrument removed and engaged onto a device to monitor its stiffness by using two strain gauges in four different directions. This monitoring method has the potential to be developed into a convenient, nondestructive turnkey system that allows in situ assessment of the integrity of NiTi instruments in the clinic. Upon fracture, which was indicated by a change in instrument stiffness, the fractured surface would be examined under a scanning electron microscope. Microscopic evaluation indicated a small area of fatigue fracture with a large area of final ductile fracture, whereby the latter was the major cyclic failure mode. Based on the results of this study, we concluded that a potential nondestructive integrity assessment method for NiTi rotary instruments was developed.