strain sensors

In this work, we developed a conductive silver nanowire (AgNW)-PDMS composite thin film for a flexible strain sensing application. The piezoresistivity of AgNWs-PDMS nanocomposite thin film was experimentally investigated and analyzed by a computational model. The strain sensor shows a strong piezoresistivity with an average gauge factor in the ranges of 1.6 to 14 and a high stretchability up to 70 %. We found excellent agreement between our experiment and simulation results.

We developed highly stretchable, flexible and very soft conductors based on the carbon nanotubes (CNTs)-silicone rubber (Ecoflex®) nanocomposite thin films. The resistance of the CNTs-Ecoflex nanocomposite thin film was recovered to its original value under cyclic loading/unloading for strains as large as 510%. Failure strain of the CNTs-Ecoflex nanocomposite was measured to be about ~ 1380% showing its ultra-high stretchability and robustness.