• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.477-496
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• 2013

Due to their cost-effectiveness and ease of installation, wireless smart sensors (WSS) have received considerable recent attention for structural health monitoring of civil infrastructure. Though various wireless smart sensor networks (WSSN) have been successfully implemented for full-scale structural health monitoring (SHM) applications, monitoring of low-level ambient strain still remains a challenging problem for WSS due to A/D converter (ADC) resolution, inherent circuit noise, and the need for automatic operation. In this paper, the design and validation of high-precision strain sensor board for the Imote2 WSS platform and its application to SHM of a cable-stayed bridge are presented. By accurate and automated balancing of the Wheatstone bridge, signal amplification of up to 2507-times can be obtained, while keeping signal mean close to the center of the ADC span, which allows utilization of the full span of the ADC. For better applicability to SHM for real-world structures, temperature compensation and shunt calibration are also implemented. Moreover, the sensor board has been designed to accommodate a friction-type magnet strain sensor, in addition to traditional foil-type strain gages, facilitating fast and easy deployment. The wireless strain sensor board performance is verified through both laboratory-scale tests and deployment on a full-scale cable-stayed bridge.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.26 no.12
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• pp.2590-2597
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• 2002

A new torque measuring apparatus adopting the basic principle of a capacitive type sensor is proposed in this article. Two plate electrodes are working as a capacitive sensor, whose capacitance varies as torque is applied. One end of each plate is connected to the torque carrying shaft. Output characteristics of the torque sensor were theoretically analyzed and its validity was investigated through experiment. Calculations and calibration experiments show that the output is nonlinear, that is, the sensitivity is very high at low torque but decreases as torque increases. The sensitivity of the proposed system is about 100 times roughly higher than that of a conventional 4-strain gauge type torque sensor.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.779-788
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• 2020

Multi-Walled Carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) coupled with Silicone Rubber (SR) can represent applicable strain sensors with accessible materials, which result in good stretchability and great sensitivity. Employing these materials and given the fact that the combination of these two has been addressed in few studies, this study is trying to represent a low-cost, durable and stretchable strain sensor that can perform excellently in a high number of repeated cycles. Great stability was observed during the cyclic test after 2000 cycles. Ultrahigh sensitivity (GF>1227) along with good extensibility (ε>120%) was observed while testing the sensor at different strain rates and the various number of cycles. Further investigation is dedicated to sensor performance in the detection of human body movements. Not only the sensor performance in detecting the small strains like the vibrations on the throat was tested, but also the larger strains as observed in extension/bending of the muscle joints like knee were monitored and recorded. Bearing in mind the applicability and low-cost features, this sensor may become promising in skin-mountable devices to detect the human body motions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.363.2-363.2
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• 2016

Stretchable strain sensors are becoming essential in diverse future applications, such as human motion detection, soft robotics, and various biomedical devices. One of the well-known approaches for fabricating stretchable strain sensors is to embed conductive nanomaterials such as metal nanowires/nanoparticles, graphene, conducting polymer and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) within an elastomeric substrate. Among various conducting nanomaterials, CNTs have been considered as important and promising candidate materials for stretchable strain sensors owing to their high electrical conductivity and excellent mechanical properties. In the past decades, CNT-based strain sensors with high stretchability or sensitivity have been developed. However, CNT-based strain sensors which show both high stretchability and sensitivity have not been reported. Herein, highly stretchable and sensitive strain sensors were fabricated by integrating single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) and nylon textiles via vacuum-assisted spray-layer-by-layer process. Our strain sensors had high sensitivity with 100 % tensile strain (gauge factor ~ 100). Cyclic tests confirmed that our strain sensors showed very robust and reliable characteristic. Moreover, our SWNTs-based strain sensors were easily and successfully integrated on human finger and knee to detect bending and walking motion. Our approach presented here might be route to preparing highly stretchable and sensitive strain sensors with providing new opportunity to realize practical wearable devices.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.192-196
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• 2002

This paper describes on the fabrication and characteristics of a metal thin-film pressure sensor based on Cr strain-gauges for harsh environment applications. The Cr thin-film strain-gauges are sputter-deposited onto a micromachined Si diaphragms with buried cavity for overpressure protectors. The proposed device takes advantages of the good mechanical properties of single-crystalline Si as diaphragms fabricated by SDB and electrochemical etch-stop technology, and in order to extend the operating temperature range, it incorporates relatively the high resistance, stability and gauge factor of Cr thin-films. The fabricated pressure sensor presents a low temperature coefficient of resistance, high-sensitivity, low non-linearity and excellent temperature stability. The sensitivity is 1.097~1.21 $mV/V{\cdot}kgf/cm^2$ in the temperature range of $25{\sim}200^{\circ}C$ and the maximum non-linearity is 0.43 %FS.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.07b
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• pp.731-734
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• 2002

This paper describes on the fabrication and characteristics of a ceramic thin-film pressure sensor based on Ta-N strain gauges for harsh environment applications. The Ta-N thin-film strain gauges are sputter deposited onto a micromachined Si diaphragms with buried cavity for overpressure protectors. The proposed device takes advantages of the good mechanical properties of single crystalline Si as diaphragms fabricated by SDB and electrochemical etch-stop technology, and in order to extend the operating temperature range, it incorporates relatively the high resistance, stability and gauge factor of Ta-N thin-films. The fabricated pressure sensor presents a low temperature coefficient of resistance, high sensitivity, low non-linearity and excellent temperature stability. The sensitivity is $1.097{\sim}1.21mV/V{\cdot}kgf/cm^2$ in the temperature range of $25{\sim}200^{\circ}C$ and the maximum non-linearity is 0.43 %FS.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.178-185
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• 2014

This paper describes a fabrication multiplexing sensor probe that employs a fiber Bragg grating(FBG) based on multiple measurements to determine the blade deflection of a wind power generator the reliability analysis of this probe is also presented. To diminish the temperature sensitivity of the FBG sensor, we form multiple CFRPs onto the upper and lower layers of the FBG and package it with an epoxy resin. As a result, the depth of the CFRP is 1mm, and the temperature sensitivity is $2.39pm/^{\circ}C$. We construct a sensor network utilizing the fabricated sensor with a blade beam model. As the number of pendulums is increased on the fore-end of the beam, the strain value is measured. The strain variation is calculated from the measurement of the load on the blade beam model by monitoring the strain of the FBG sensor. When the linear equation is applied, the strain error is 0.4% and when the finite difference method is used, the tip deflection error is 3.3%. The displacement error derived from the strain value of the FBG sensor is 4.39%. The calculated result between the measured value of the dead-end of the beam and the strain is less than 2.46% tip distortion error. Therefore, our proposed multiplexing sensor probe is a low-cost and high-reliability solution for a commercial wind power generator.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.321-326
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• 2013

In this paper, the usability of a compact silicon strain gauge load cell in a weighting disdrometer for measuring the impact load of a falling raindrop is introduced for application in a multi-meteorological sensor. The silicon strain gauge load cell is based on the piezoresistive effect, which has a high linearity output from the momentum of the raindrop and the simplicity of signal processing. The weighting disdrometer shows a high sensitivity of 7.8 mV/g in static load measurement when the diaphragm thickness of the load cell is $250{\mu}m$.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.625-631
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• 2017

In the fields of civil engineering and seismology, it is essential to detect and tracking the vibrations, and the fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) are typically used as sensors to measure vibrations. Where, one of the most popular and detailed approaches to use FBGs as vibration sensors involves the use of cantilever beam designs, which adds a mass to measure low and moderate frequencies (from 20 Hz up to 1 kHz) with high sensitivities (greater than 10 pm/g). The design consists of a bending strain in the cantilever that is simultaneously transferred to the FBG, resulting in a shift in the wavelength that is proportional to the strain experienced by the cantilever. In this work, we present the experimental results of a vibration sensor design using a cantilever beam to generate an axial uniform strain in the FBG in-line with the vertical axis, which modifies the cantilever's natural frequency that allows the sensor to have a wide frequency broadband without losing sensitivity. This sensor achieved a sensitivity of about 339 pm/g and a natural frequency of 227.3 Hz. The presented design compared with the traditional cantilever beam-based FBG vibration sensors, has the advantages of a simple design for detection on vibration-sensitive structures and its physical parameters can be easily modified in order to satisfy the requirements of the desired vibration measurements.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.63 no.4
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• pp.495-501
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• 2014

Piezoresistive-type, capacitive-type, and optical-type sensors have mainly been used for measuring a strain. However, in building a sensor network for remote monitoring using these conventional sensors there are disadvantages such as the complexity of a measuring system including wireless communication circuitry and high cost. In this paper, we demonstrates a highly-sensitive surface acoustic wave (SAW) strain sensor which is advantageous to harsh environments and wireless network. We designed and fabricated the SAW strain sensor. The SAW strain sensor attached on a specimen was tested with a tensile tester. The strain on the sensor surface was measured with a commercial strain gauge and compared with that obtained from strain analysis. The central frequency shift of the SAW sensor was measured with a network analyzer. The sensitivity of the SAW strain sensor is 134 $Hz/{\mu}{\varepsilon}$ which is high compared to previous results.