Wash Analyses of Flexible and Wearable Printed Circuits for E-Textiles and Their Prediction of Damages

Shahood Uz Zaman,Vladan Koncar,Xuyuan Tao,Cédric Cochrane

doi:10.3390/electronics10111362

Abstract

The development of specific user-based wearable smart textiles is gaining interest. The reliability and washability of e-textiles, especially electronic-based components of e-textiles, are under particular investigation nowadays. This is because e-textiles cannot be washed like normal textile products and washing electronic products is not common practice in our daily life. To adopt the e-textile products in our daily life, new standards, based on product usage, should be developed especially for flexibility and washability. The wearable motherboards are the main component for e-textile systems. They should be washing reliable and flexible for better adoption in the system. In this manuscript, flexible wearable PCBs were prepared with different conductive track widths and protected with silicone coatings. The samples were washed for 50 washing cycles in the household washing machine, and provoked damages were investigated. The PCBs were also investigated for bending tests (simulating mechanical stresses in the washing machine), and resultant damages were discussed and co-related with washing damages. The bending test was performed by bending the FPCBs at 90° over the circular rod and under the known hanging load.

Highlights

Electronics 2021, 10, 1362. https://Textiles that are smart enough to interpret user requirements based on the designed system and type of output can be categorized as smart textiles [1,2]
Flexibility is a key figure for these types of circuits, which should be compatible with the textile mechanical properties
A flexural rigidity test was performed on these FPCB samples with and without silicone protection

Summary

Introduction

Electronics 2021, 10, 1362. https://Textiles that are smart enough to interpret user requirements based on the designed system and type of output can be categorized as smart textiles [1,2]. Electronic circuit boards have gained much importance because they provide mechanical support and electrical connections to the entire electrical network. These circuit boards should be reliable and comfortable for wearable applications [10]. Flexibility is a key figure for these types of circuits, which should be compatible with the textile mechanical properties. The easiest and lowest-cost method of realizing flexible circuits is using copper-coated thin sheets to obtain the flexible circuit boards. These boards could be fixed on wearable textiles by different means, including stitching and bonding using some adhesive materials [17]. Poor adhesion problems and flexibility mismatch with substrate create problems [15,16,18]

Methods

Results

Conclusion