Liu Mingjie, Zhang Qi, Zhao Yulong, Shao Yiwei, Zhang Dongliang
State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
Sensors (Basel). 2020 Jun 16;20(12):3395. doi: 10.3390/s20123395.
In this paper, we present a fully printed accelerometer with a piezoresistive carbon paste-based strain gauge printed on its surface, which can be manufactured at low cost and with high efficiency. This accelerometer is composed of two parts: a sensor substrate made from high-temperature resin, which is printed by a 3D printer based on stereolithography apparatus (SLA), and a carbon paste-based strain gauge fabricated by screen-printing technology and by direct ink writing (DIW) technology for the purposes of comparison and optimization. First, the structural design, theoretical analysis, simulation analysis of the accelerometer, and analyses of the conductive mechanism and the piezoresistive mechanism of the carbon paste-based strain gauge were carried out. Then the proposed accelerometer was fabricated by a combination of different printing technologies and the curing conditions of the carbon paste were investigated. After that, the accelerometers with the screen-printed strain gauge and DIW strain gauge were characterized. The results show that the printing precision of the screen-printing process on the sensor substrate is higher than the DIW process, and both accelerometers can perform acceleration measurement. Also, this kind of accelerometer can be used in the field of measuring body motion. All these findings prove that 3D printing technology is a significant method for sensor fabrication and verification.
在本文中，我们展示了一种全印刷加速度计，其表面印刷有基于压阻碳糊的应变计，该加速度计能够以低成本和高效率制造。这种加速度计由两部分组成：一个由高温树脂制成的传感器基板，通过基于立体光刻设备（SLA）的3D打印机进行印刷；以及一个基于碳糊的应变计，通过丝网印刷技术和直接墨水书写（DIW）技术制造，用于比较和优化。首先，对加速度计进行了结构设计、理论分析、模拟分析，以及对基于碳糊的应变计的导电机制和压阻机制进行了分析。然后，通过不同印刷技术的组合制造了所提出的加速度计，并研究了碳糊的固化条件。之后，对带有丝网印刷应变计和DIW应变计的加速度计进行了表征。结果表明，传感器基板上丝网印刷工艺的印刷精度高于DIW工艺，并且两种加速度计都能够进行加速度测量。此外，这种加速度计可用于人体运动测量领域。所有这些发现证明，3D打印技术是传感器制造和验证的一种重要方法。
