Live and Continuous Monitoring of Metal Cylinders and Tanks using Distributed Carbon Nanomaterial-based Sensing Networks

This SBIR effort proposes using live and continuous monitoring of metal tanks, pressure vessels, and pipelines using carbon nanomaterial-based sensing skins to detect excessive physical strains, cracks, and to inspect impact damage. The proposed research and development work leverages 15+ years of fundamental research. The key objective is to advance the TRL level and the scalability of carbon nanomaterial-based sensors to address a critical unmet need of monitoring the integrity of structures such as tanks and pipes to reduce the chances of catastrophic accidents. Carbon nanomaterial will be deposited on carrier fabrics using inherently scalable and patented processing technique to create 'smart skins' that can continuously detect the strains and formation of cracks on tanks and vessels. The sensing skin can be embedded into structures during the manufacturing stage or can be integrated with existing in-service packages. The advantages of using this technology are distributed sensing, the ability to detect defects on metallic and non-metallic structures, scalability, cost effectiveness, and real-time, live monitoring.