Carbon fiber tow inspection technique using software defined radios

James R. Humphries, Roger A. Kisner, Stephen M. Killough, Merlin Theodore, Yarom Polsky

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Inline inspection of carbon fiber tow is desired to enable rapid feedback to key fabrication process parameters. The tow is delicate in that it necessitates wireless techniques to remotely probe the tow properties to avoid damage during production. In this article, we investigate the use of software defined radios (SDRs) to measure microwave signal attenuation through the tow. Carbon fiber samples that have undergone different process conditions are measured with the system, and measurements exhibit over 10 dB in variation based on the process conditions. These measurements are correlated against results from conventional physical analysis. The developed system and measurement technique show promise as a method to wirelessly inspect carbon fiber tow using SDR.

Original languageEnglish
Article number8501551
JournalIEEE Sensors Letters
Volume2
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2018

Funding

The authors would like to thank CFTF staff members K. Sitzlar, T. Summers, and T. Robinson for their support in performing these measurements. This work was supported by DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency And Renewable Energy Advanced Manufacturing and Vehicle Technologies Offices. This manuscript was authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under Grant DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).

Keywords

  • Carbon fiber tow
  • Materials characterization
  • Nondestructive evaluation
  • Sensor applications
  • Software defined radio (SDR)
  • Universal software radio peripheral (USRP)

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