Thermal Characterization of New 3D-Printed Bendable, Coplanar Capacitive Sensors

Abstract

In this paper a new low-cost stretchable coplanar capacitive sensor for liquid level sensing is presented. It has been 3D-printed by employing commercial thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and conductive materials and using a fused filament fabrication (FFF) process for monolithic fabrication. The sensor presents high linearity and good repeatability when measuring sunflower oil level. Experiments were performed to analyse the behaviour of the developed sensor when applying bending stimuli, in order to verify its flexibility, and a thermal characterization was performed in the temperature range from 10 °C to 40 °C to evaluate its effect on sunflower oil level measurement. The experimental results showed negligible sensitivity of the sensor to bending stimuli, whereas the thermal characterization produced a model describing the relationship between capacitance, temperature, and oil level, allowing temperature compensation in oil level measurement. The different temperature cycles allowed to quantify the main sources of uncertainty, and their effect on level measurement was evaluated.

Keywords

• additive manufacturing
• fused filament fabrication
• conductive filaments
• capacitive level sensors
• flexible sensors
• thermal characterization