Systems and methods for measuring material degradation
View Patent ↗Systems and methods that measure material deformation by measuring a tracer gas that has been added to or is present in an engineered material that is subsequently released from the material, measured, and correlated to a change in a property of the material upon a stress/strain being applied to the engineered material.
1. A method for detecting a strained state of an engineered material, comprising:
homogeneously fixing within the engineered material an amount of a tracer gas when forming the engineered material;
applying a stress to the engineered material to release the tracer gas from the engineered material; and
sensing an amount of tracer gas released from within the engineered material and associating the amount of tracer gas sensed to the strained state within the engineered material;
wherein the engineered material is selected from the group consisting essentially of glass, ceramics and cermets.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
correlating the amount of the sensed tracer gas to a state of the engineered material.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the state of the engineered material is selected from a group consisting of fracture volume, fracture size, fracture number/density and fracture location.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tracer gas is fixed in the engineered material by disposing the tracer material within glass or polymer microspheres or beads or by diffusing the tracer gas into a crystalline or amorphous material within the engineered material.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tracer gas is fixed in the engineered material by diffusing the tracer gas into a crystalline or amorphous material within the engineered material.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the stress is directly applied to the engineered material.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the strained state in the engineered material results from a temperature change or material chemical modification or degradation to the engineered material.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tracer gas is fixed in the engineered material by diffusing the tracer gas into crystalline material within the engineered material.
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tracer gas is selected from a group consisting of noble gases, gases with specific isotopic composition and engineered gases.
10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the engineered gases are selected from a group consisting of refrigerants and insulators.
11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tracer gas is fixed to a carrier material disposed within the engineered material.
12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the carrier material comprises quartz particles or fragments.
13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the carrier material is ceramic particles.