Architectural design of flexible anisotropic piezoresistive composite for multiple-loading recognization

• Published in: Composites. Part B, Engineering Engineering, 2020-02, Vol.182, p.107631, Article 107631
• Main Authors: Huang, Pei, Yu, Xiao-Guang, Li, Yuan-Qing, Fu, Ya-Fei, Gan, Dong-Ming, Taha, Tarek, Fu, Ya-Qin, Hu, Ning, Fu, Shao-Yun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1359-8368; 1879-1069
• DOI: 10.1016/j.compositesb.2019.107631

Fabrication of anisotropic piezoresistive materials is ultimately important for the realization of multi-loading recognization in robotics, auto-driving, artificial intelligence and health care, etc., whereas most of the existing production strategies are time-consuming and costly. Herein, we applied a simple structural design of carbonized cotton thread (CCT) to produce anisotropic piezoresistive CCT/silicone composites. Specifically, the rectangular wave shaped CCT/silicone composite (Re-CCT) and straight CCT/silicone composite (St-CCT), which exhibit distinct sensing performance to tension and compression, are fabricated. Their sensors’ gauge factor (GF) for tension and compression obeys: GFTen-St > GFCom-St ≈ GFCom-Re > GFTen-Re ≈ 0. Consequently, the flexible multifunctional anisotropic piezoresistive composite integrated with Re-CCT and St-CCT is able to distinguish multiple loading modes, including compression, tension and their combination, via monitoring the micro-deformation applied by a finger and the status of a bottle handled by a robotic hand. The current strategy shows a great promise in manufacturing flexible anisotropic piezoresistive composite sensors for robotics, auto-driving, artificial intelligence and health care applications, etc. [Display omitted]