3D printed capacitive relative pressure sensor for use in a CAE environment

This paper focuses on the fabrication of a capacitive 3D printed pressure sensor for the context of educational use. In the Moroccan education system context and Africa in general, massification and lack of experimentation equipment are major problems that affect the quality of teaching. The use of 3D printing technology to produce sensors in Computer Assisted Experiment Environment (CAE) could contribute to solve these problems by reducing the overall cost of the experiment. The Polylactic acid (PLA) is used as the manufacturing material to print the sensor, by means of a printer based on fused deposing modeling while conductive materials are used to ensure the electrical conductivity necessary for the printed sensors. The fabricated sensor was tested under pressure in the interval of [0;9] kPa, which is the most commonly used range in the practical work. Experimental measurements show maximum sensitivity equal to 5.36×10^-1 pF/hPa. The hardware used for the capacitive sensor read-out is composed of the MicroLabExAO acquisition board, and the capacitive sensing circuit is based on a capacitive bridge. As proof of concept, the fabricated sensor is used in an experiment of water volume.