Self-Sensing Materials for Passive and Telemetrical Structure Health Monitoring

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2026078667-A1
Application number	US-202418883734-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Sep 12, 2024
Priority date	Sep 18, 2023
Publication date	Mar 19, 2026
Grant date	—

Abstract

Structural health monitoring (SHM) of an engineered component in a harsh environment is critical for multiple DOE missions including nuclear fuel cycle, subsurface energy production/storage, and energy conversion. The present invention provides a concept for SHM by introducing a self-sensing capability into structural components. The concept employs metamaterials and additive manufacturing. A self-sensing capability was engineered by embedding a metastructure, with a sheet of electromagnetic resonators, either metallic or dielectric, into a material component. The embedment was accomplished by 3-D printing. The precise geometry of the embedded metastructure determines how the material interacts with an incident electromagnetic wave. Change in structure of the material inevitably affects the embedded metastructures/metasurface array and alters the electromagnetic response of the material. A frequency shift of a reflection spectrum is detected passively and remotely for SHM. The approach eliminates complicated environmental shielding, in-situ power supply, and wire routing generally required by existing active-circuit-based sensors.

First claim

1 . A self-sensing metastructure comprising:
a) a structural component for metastructure; said material embedded with a sheet or multiple sheets of electromagnetic resonator or a layer or multiple layers of meshes of an electrically conductive material onto or beneath surface of a structural component to form embedded metastructure or metasurface arrays; said embedding process accomplished by 3-D printing; b) said electromagnetic resonator selected from a group consisting of electrically conductive material and high dielectric material; and c) a metasurface surrounding the resonator; said metasurface selected from a group consisting of dielectric metasurface or plasmonic metasurface.

2 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 1 , wherein the electromagnetic resonator is selected from a group consisting of closed ring resonator, split ring resonator (SRR), edge coupled SRR, double sided SRR, broadside coupled SRR, circular SRR, multiple SRR, and double sided multiple SRR.

3 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 1 , wherein the metasurface is a dielectric metasurface.

4 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 1 , wherein the dielectric material is SrTiO 3 , BaTiO 3 , LaAlO 3 , TiO 2 , Nb 2 O 5 , Ta 2 O 5 , HfSiO 4 , ZrO 2 , Al 2 O 3 , silicon carbide, and materials having dielectric constants greater than 5 to achieve significant contrast in dielectric constant of at least greater than 5 between the metastructure and surrounding structural component.

5 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 1 , wherein the electrically conductive material is selected from a group consisting of copper, nickel, tungsten, aluminum, carbon steel, stainless steel, high entropy (HE) alloys, graphite, conductive polymer, and other materials having high melting temperatures greater than 300° C.; wherein said graphite is selected from graphene and carbon fiber.

6 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 1 , wherein the electrically conductive material for mesh metastructure is selected from carbon steel, stainless steel, and copper.

7 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 1 , wherein the plasmonic metasurface comprises multiple split ring resonator metal structure.

8 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 1 , wherein the plasmonic metasurface is about 3 to 300 GHz.

9 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 1 , wherein the electrically conductive material is copper or FeCoNiCrCu high entropy alloy.

10 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 1 , comprising a symmetric copper resonator and four SRRs embedded in a dielectric material matrix; said dielectric matrix surrounding the resonator and protecting the copper metal from harsh and corrosive environment; wherein said symmetric copper resonator is polarization independent.

11 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 1 , wherein the metastructure acts as an LC resonance circuit.

12 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 1 , wherein for a double ring resonator, the resonance frequency of the structure f can be described by formula:

f
=

1

2
⁢
π
⁢

L
⁢
C

where f is the resonance frequency and L is the inductance. The simplest expression for capacitance C can be given as:

C
=

ε
0

⁢

ε
r

⁢

A
d

where ε 0 is the relative permittivity of vacuum, ε r , is the relative permittivity of the dielectric matrix, A is the area of the resonator and d is the distance between the two rings.

13 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 12 , wherein any change in the relative permittivity of the dielectric matrix ε r is due to a temperature variation or a change in geometry constants A and d.

14 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 1 , wherein the dielectric resonators have the same resonance as SRR resonators.

15 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 12 , wherein the size of resonator is about 100 μm to 1 centimeter.

16 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 12 , wherein the resonance is about 3 to 300 GHz.

17 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 1 , wherein the structural component material is a nonmetallic material selected from a group consisting of ceramic or cement; wherein said ceramic is either sintered or unsintered.

18 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 1 , prepared by a process comprising the steps of:
a) embedding a metastructure with a sheet or multiple sheets of electromagnetic resonators or a layer or multiple layers of meshes of an electrically conductive material on or beneath surface of a structural component material forming embedded metastructures or metasurface arrays; and b) conducting the embedding process by 3-D printing.

19 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 1 , for monitoring SHM and determining structural integrity of a material passively, remotely, and wirelessly, comprising:
a) employing the self-sensing metastructure, electromagnetic source, and detector; b) detecting spectral shifts of a reflected or transmitted wave; c) measuring resonance frequency shift to detect natural structural change; d) evaluating structural health or environmental conditions by comparing the measured resonance frequency pattern and shift with the ones initially calibrated.

20 . The self-sensing metastructure according to claim 19 , for application in structural integrity monitoring of well bore plugging using well casing as a wave guide.

Assignees

• Us Dept Energy
• Us Energy

Inventors

• Wang Yifeng
• Karl Nicholas
• Xiong Yongliang
• Marquez Cory
• Lin Yirong

Classifications

• E21B47/005 Primary

  Monitoring or checking of cementation quality or level · CPC title

• G01N22/00

  Investigating or analysing materials by the use of microwaves or radio waves, i.e. electromagnetic waves with a wavelength of one millimetre or more (G01N3/00 - G01N17/00, G01N24/00 take precedence) · CPC title

• E21B47/13 Primary

  by electromagnetic energy, e.g. radio frequency · CPC title