Abstract
Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is a low-cost, fast and e ective structural health monitoring technique that can be used on carbon ber reinforced polymers (CFRP). Elec-trodes are a key component of any EIT system and as such they should feature
low resistivityas well as high robustness and reproducibility. Surface preparation is required prior to bond-ing of electrodes. Currently this task is mostly carried out by traditional sanding. However this is a time consuming procedure which can
also induce damage to surface bers and lead to spurious electrode properties. Here we propose an alternative processing technique based on the use of pulsed laser irradiation. The processing parameters that result in selective re-moval of the electrically
insulating resin with minimum surface ber damage are identified. A quantitative analysis of the electrical contact resistance is presented and the results are compared with those obtained using sanding.
Keywords: A. Laminates, B. Electrical properties, C. Surface electrodes, D. Laser ablation
