Undesirable Aspects of Fatigue on Stretchable Elastomer Sensors

摘要

Flexible electronics is a rapidly developing branch of modern economy. Flexing, bending and stretching of elastic components leads to inevitable changes in the internal structures which brings undesirable variation in their electrical behaviors. The present work was focused on investigation of undesirable aspects of fatigue on functionality of stretchable elastomer sensors based on natural rubber composites containing multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) and carbon black hybrid filler systems at various weight combinations. Conductive elastomer containing all common additives, curatives and a fixed amount of hybrid fillers were prepared and tested before and after 10~5 dynamic loading cycles at three different strain amplitudes. Although the increased loading of MWCNT in the hybrid filler system improved progressively the conductivity of the fabricated composites and tended to prevent conductivity degradation during fatigue test, continued cyclic deformation led to decreased conductivity of all studied samples. Besides the conductivity degradation, other undesirable feature found were the time dependent increase of the conductivity during measurements at a constant applied voltage and the prolonged stress induced softening of the composites.