Additive Manufacturing for Sensors: Piezoresistive Strain Gauge with Temperature Compensation

Abstract

Additive manufacturing technologies allow the fabrication of smart objects, which are made up of a dielectric part and an embedded sensor able to give real-time feedback to the final user. This research presents the characterization of a low-cost 3D-printed strain sensor, fabricated using material extrusion (MeX) technology by using a conductive material composed of a polylactic acid (PLA)-based matrix doped with carbon black and carbon nanotubes (CNT), thus making the plastic conductive. A suitable measurement set-up was developed to perform automatic characterization tests using a high repeatability industrial robot to define either displacement or force profiles. The correlation between the applied stimulus and the variation of the electrical resistance of the 3D-printed sensor was evaluated, and an approach was developed to compensate for the effect of temperature. Results show that temperature and hysteresis affect repeatability; nevertheless, the sensor accurately detects impulse forces ranging from 10 g to 50 g. The sensor showed high linearity and exhibited a sensitivity of 0.077 Ω g−1 and 12.54 Ω mm−1 in the force and displacement range of 114 g and 0.7 mm, respectively, making them promising due to their low cost, ease of fabrication, and possible integration into more complex devices in a single-step fabrication cycle.

Rock Surface Strain In Situ Monitoring Affected by Temperature Changes at the Požáry Field Lab (Czechia)

“…This phase revealed its importance in practice, and that it should be considered in all possible monitoring system applications, to properly define the dependency of the sensors on temperature. In addition, for short term campaigns, the strain gauges should be constructed to compensate for the temperature-related behavior of specific materials [ 62 ].…”

“…Specialized probes were also developed based on strain gauges, which are able to measure stress changes in the rock mass depth, using state-of-the-art, but financially demanding, dataloggers [ 60 , 61 ]. For these rock mass depth applications, the temperature is considered stable; consequently, the instruments are not compensated for possible thermal effects [ 62 ]. Generalizing, the application of resistivity strain gauging under natural rock slope conditions has not been practically investigated.…”

Design and Implimentation of a Mechatronic System Namely Seat Check Module With Application to CNC System: A Review

“…An approach was created to account for the impact of temperature by evaluating the relationship between the applied stimulation and the change of the resistance value of the 3D-printed sensor.". [2] Author says that "In a variety of industrial applications as well as in our daily lives, sensors are frequently utilized as the "ears," "noses," or "eyes" for information processing systems. Realtime information is often provided by sensors, which has advanced the electronic industry by simplifying contemporary technical systems and making many systems analysis and design more affordable, dependable, and safe.".…”

Powders of rGO-coated polyamide with special electrical properties for SLS 3D printing

“…Figure 1 shows a schematic representation of a printer operating on SLS technology. First, the original polymer powder is loaded into the hopper (1). Further, a small amount of powder is transferred to the working platform (3) with the help of a special devicea squeegee knife (2) in a uniform thin layer.…”