Self-sensing is the ability of product to sense its own condition or its surroundings. Advantage is that you don’t need an implanted or attached sensor system. The costs are lower, the durability is higher, the sensing volume is bigger and the mechanical property loss is lower.

Brightlands Materials Center has developed proprietary self-sensing functionality in products made by Continuous Fiber Additive Manufacturing. Continuous carbon fibers inside the product act as sensors that record deformations of the product. The technology allows for self-sensing products to be made with the advantages that additive manufacturing brings: shape design freedom to make a specific product and sensor customization to monitor the information at the location that is required.

A potential application is Structural Health Monitoring functionality in critical structures to allow better decision making in for example maintenance schedules. Another example are a self-sensing prototypes that monitor the use conditions during a test period to make better design choices for the final product.