Monitoring the water absorption in GFRE pipes via an electrical capacitance sensors

One of the major problems in glass fiber reinforced epoxy (GFRE) composite pipes is the durability under water absorption. This condition is generally recognized to cause degradations in strength and mechanical properties. Therefore, there is a need for an intelligent system for detecting the absorption rate and computing the mass of water absorption (M%) as a function of absorption time (t). The present work represents a new non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique for detecting the water absorption rate by evaluating the dielectric properties of glass fiber and epoxy resin composite pipes subjected to internal hydrostatic pressure at room temperature. The variation in the dielectric signatures is employed to design an electrical capacitance sensor (ECS) with high sensitivity to detect such defects. ECS consists of twelve electrodes mounted on the outer surface of the pipe. Radius-electrode ratio is defined as the ratio of inner and outer radius of pipe. A finite element (FE) simulation model is developed to measure the capacitance values and node potential distribution of ECS electrodes on the basis of water absorption rate in the pipe material as a function of absorption time. The arrangements for positioning12-electrode sensor parameters such as capacitance, capacitance change and change rate of capacitance are analyzed by ANSYS and MATLAB to plot the mass of water absorption curve against absorption time (t). An analytical model based on a Fickian diffusion model is conducted to predict the saturation level of water absorption (MS) from the obtained mass of water absorption curve. The FE results are in excellent agreement with the analytical results and experimental results available in the literature, thus, validating the accuracy and reliability of the proposed expert system.