Manufacturing Experiments using FDM 3D-printed Flexible Resistance Sensors with Heterogeneous Polymer Material Annealing

초록

In this paper, the performances of the electrical characteristics of the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)3D-printed flexible resistance sensor was evaluated. The FDM 3D printing flexible resistive sensor iscomposed of flexible-material thermoplastic polyurethane and a conductive PLA (carbon black conductivepolylactic acid) polymer. While 3D printing, polymer filaments heat up quickly before being extruded andcooled down quickly. Polymers have poor thermal conductivity so the heating and cooling causes unevenness,which then results in internal stress on the printed parts due to the rapidity of the heating and cooling. Electrical resistance measurements show that the 3D-printed flexible sensor is unstable due to internal stress,so the 3D-printed flexible sensor resistance curve does not match the increases and decreases in thedisplacement curve. Therefore, annealing was performed to eliminate the mismatch between electricalresistance and displacement. Annealing eliminates residual stress on the sensor, so the electrical resistance ofthe sensor increases and decreases in proportion to displacement. Additionally, the resistance is lowered incomparison to before annealing. The results of this study will be very useful for the fabrication of variousdevices that employ 3D-printed flexible sensor that have multiple degrees of freedom and are not limited bysize and shape.

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