• Composites Research
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.387-393
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• 2021

This paper investigated the electrical properties of multiwall carbon nanotube reinforced polydimethylsiloxane (CNT-PDMS) strain sensors with copper electrodes on the wet-etched surface. MWCNT-PDMS strain sensors were fabricated according to the wt% of MWCNT. Surfaces on the electrode area were wet-etched with various etching duration and silver epoxy adhesives were spread on the wet-etched surface. Finally, we attached the copper electrodes to the MWCNT-PMDS strain sensors. We checked the electric conductivities by the two-probe method and sensing characteristics under the cyclic loading. We observed the electric conductivity of MWCNT-PDMS strain sensors increased sharply and the scattering of the measured data decreased when the surface of the electrode area was wet-etched. Initial resistances of MWCNT-PDMS strain sensors were inversely proportion to wt% of MWCNT and the etching duration. However, the resistance changing rates under 30% strain increased as wt% of MWCNT and the etching duration increased. Decreasing rate of the electric resistance change after 100 repetitions was smaller when wt% of MWCNT was larger and the etching duration was short. This was due to the low initial resistance of the MWCNT-PMDS strain sensors by the wet-etching.