Syringe-Based Extruded Customized Crack Propagation Sensor Shape Tailoring and Thermography Manufacturing Defect Control

The paper presents the approach of manufacturing defect control of a new type of crack gauge, called customized crack propagation sensor. The sensor is intended for monitoring surface fatigue cracks. The sensor measuring layer geometry can be tailored to the monitored area due to syringe-based extrusion production technique. But to ensure and verify the correct sensor preparation, the defect control method based of thermography imaging is proposed. The conducted research revealed very good performance of that method, where defected areas are characterized by hot spots along the conductive strand.