Carbon Nanotube Polymer Composites for High Performance Strain Sensors

Polymer/CNT nanocomposites as piezoresistive films provide an innovative approach for the realization of scalable strain sensors with high sensitivity and low manufacturing costs. These nanocomposites can be realized by thin film deposition or printing techniques on flexible substrates, e.g. foils, mats and textiles, and lead to flexible functional layers. Depending on the sensor geometry the sensing layers allow the strain measurement of integral measurements and local measurement at a certain position. Strain sensors based on carbon nanostructures can overcome several limitations of conventional strain sensors and provide interesting advantages, e.g. high sensitivity, adjustable measurement range and integral measurement on large surfaces. Some of these aspects will be exemplarily discussed for CNT/epoxy and CNT/PEDOT: PSS nanocomposites. Owing to their aforementioned features, CNT based flexible strain sensors are highly attractive for applications in the fields of structural health monitoring (SHM) and wearable devices.