Conductive graphene polymer composites are considered promising functional materials in gas detection, strain detection, metal corrosion prevention, and electromagnetic wave absorption, owing to their good flexibility, lightweight, and adjustable conductivity. The internal defects or external damages of composite films will seriously affect the electrical and functional properties of the materials. Based on the conductive network inside the conductive polymer film and the self-inductance to ultrasonic wave, the defect self-monitoring system of the conductive polymer film is designed and optimized in this work. The self-damage detection system is composed of an electrode array, excitation source, resistance signal acquisition and processing circuit, and damage display. Aiming at different scenarios, the improved interdigital structure transducer for sensors and damage detection device for coating film with a large area are presented and optimized respectively. Meanwhile, the damage location algorithm based on time difference measurement and kernel density estimation algorithm is also optimized. The multiple damage detection is realized by a device with a 4 × 8 electrode array, and the relative error of damage area with 1 mm × 1 mm is less than 5%, and the lower detection limits of damage size are 0.3 mm × 0.3 mm.
Keywords: conducting polymer composites; damage location; defect self-monitoring; graphene composites; sensing film.