Pressure monitoring is critical across numerous industries, especially with the rise of Industry 4.0 and IoT. Sensors, particularly in bioengineering, provide valuable physiological data. Current sensor production methods, utilizing materials like gold, silver, and flexible substrates like polydimethylsiloxane, are often costly and limited in application adaptability.
Additive manufacturing has streamlined sensor fabrication, reducing production time and material waste. Among AM methods, FDM is particularly effective for cost-efficient prototyping. FDM uses thermoplastic filaments, often enhanced with conductive materials such as graphene or carbon nanotubes, to produce sensors with desired electrical and mechanical properties.
Recent research from the Universitá Campus Bio-Medico di Roma in Italy has focused on using FDM to create fully 3D printed conductive sensors. These sensors, made from conductive TPU filaments, are soft, flexible, and suitable for wearable applications. Various interconnection shapes (domes, pyramids, cylinders) and infill levels (20%, 50%, 100%) were tested to evaluate their impact on sensor performance. The study found that sensor sensitivity and mechanical properties varied with these factors.
Mechanical tests showed that cylinder-shaped sensors were the most rigid, while pyramid-shaped sensors exhibited the highest compressive strain. Electromechanical tests indicated that pyramid-shaped sensors with 100% infill had the highest sensitivity, significantly affecting their functionality.
The findings, published in the Advanced Intelligent Systems journal, can be read at this link.