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Abstract
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.
Highlights
Three-dimensional printing technology is a family of layer-by-layer fabrication processes for the fabrication of objects, which has the advantages of low cost, high efficiency, simple process steps, the ability to fabricate complex structures and a wide range of materials for selection [1,2,3]
The accelerometer consists of a sensor substrate and a strain gauge printed on the surface of it
Using a combination of different printing technologies, this paper presents a fully printed accelerometer with a piezoresistive carbon paste-based strain gauge that can be produced in a cost-effective and highly efficient way
Summary
Three-dimensional printing technology is a family of layer-by-layer fabrication processes for the fabrication of objects, which has the advantages of low cost, high efficiency, simple process steps, the ability to fabricate complex structures and a wide range of materials for selection [1,2,3]. Some typical examples of 3D printing technologies are stereolithography apparatus (SLA), fused deposition modeling (FDM), selective laser sintering (SLS), direct ink writing (DIW) and inkjet printing [4,5]. During the SLA process, the plastic monomers are directly shaped by the photopolymerization process and based on the 3D computer-aided design (CAD) model to form complex structures [7]. Due to its high accuracy, simple process and low cost, SLA has been widely used in fields such as bioengineering, micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS), and electronic and mechanical devices [8]
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