Behavior of 3D Printed Stretchable Structured Sensors

Piezoresistive structures inspired by serpentines, auxetic, and kirigami arrangements have demonstrated good flexibility and sensitivity under tension. Piezoresistive structures display optimal performance when the characteristics entail reliable stretchability and repeatability. These structures can be implemented as wearable sensors by compressing and elongating the conductive nanocomposites to vary the flow of electrons and to provide resistance change. To guarantee the reliability of these structures for strain sensing, it is important that the resistance change in these structures remains constant under repeated loads. In this study, the performance of different piezoresistive structures under cyclic tensile load is investigated and compared. Based on the performance of different types of structures, novel hybrid structures have been also proposed to design for both high stretchability and sensitivity of piezoresistive sensors. All the structures were tested with position limits rather than a fixed force to avoid permanent deformation. First, small position limits were used to determine Young’s Modulus, then a 10-cycle tensile test with larger position limits was used to further study the electromechanical behavior of different piezoresistive structures under larger deformation and repetition. Finally, the gage factor was derived for all the studied structures, and they were re-categorized based on properties’ similarities.