4.6 Review

Textile strain sensors: a review of the fabrication technologies, performance evaluation and applications

Journal

MATERIALS HORIZONS
Volume 6, Issue 2, Pages 219-249

Publisher

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY
DOI: 10.1039/c8mh01062e

Keywords

-

Funding

  1. Australian Research Council [FT130100380, IH140100018, DP170102859]
  2. Institute for Frontier Materials (Impact Grant)
  3. Deakin University (Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellowship)
  4. Australian Research Council [FT130100380] Funding Source: Australian Research Council

Ask authors/readers for more resources

The recent surge in using wearable personalized devices has made it increasingly important to have flexible textile-based sensor alternatives that can be comfortably worn and can sense a wide range of body strains. Typically fabricated from rigid materials such as metals or semiconductors, conventional strain sensors can only withstand small strains and result in bulky, inflexible, and hard-to-wear devices. Textile strain sensors offer a new generation of devices that combine strain sensing functionality with wearability and high stretchability. In this review, we discuss recent exciting advances in the fabrication, performance enhancement, and applications of wearable textile strain sensors. We describe conventional and novel approaches to achieve textile strain sensors such as coating, conducting elastomeric fiber spinning, wrapping, coiling, coaxial fiber processing, and knitting. We also discuss how important performance parameters such as electrical conductivity, mechanical properties, sensitivity, sensing range, and stability are influenced by fabrication strategies to illustrate their effects on the sensing mechanism of textile sensors. We summarize the potential applications of textile sensors in structural health monitoring, wearable body movement measurements, data gloves, and entertainment. Finally, we present the challenges and opportunities that exist to date in order to provide meaningful guidelines and directions for future research.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.6
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available