Fabrication and mechanical characterisation of inkjet printed strain gauges

The present study focuses on printing strain sensors directly on tensile test specimens using inkjet printing technology. This type of strain gauges has the advantage over conventional strain gauges that no glue or carrying platelet is present between the sensor and the surface that should be measured. Therefore, strains in thin foils can possibly be measured with printed strain gauges. First, proof of principle is given in this paper by successfully printing strain gauges on FR4. The printed strain gauges prove to behave linearly up to strains of 0.2% and can measure the strains within 3.5% accuracy.