Refinement of Temperature Sensing Yarns

Abstract

Body temperature is an important parameter to measure in a number of fields such as medicine and sport. In medicine temperature changes can indicate underlying pathologies such as wound infections, while in sport temperature can be associated to a change in performance. In both cases a wearable temperature monitoring solution is preferable. In earlier work a temperature sensing yarn has been developed and characterized. The yarns were constructed by embedding an off-the-shelf thermistor into a polymer resin micro-pod and then into the fibers of a yarn. This process created a temperature sensing yarn that was conformal, drapeable, mechanically resilient, and washable. This work builds on this early study with the purposes of identifying the steady state error bought about on the temperature measurements as a result of the polymer resin and yarn fibers. Here a wider range of temperatures than previously explored were investigated. Additionally two types of polymer resin with different thermal properties have been tested, with varying thicknesses, for the encapsulation of the thermistor. This provides useful additional information for optimizing the temperature sensing yarn design.

Keywords

• electronic textiles
• wearable electronics
• smart textiles
• temperature sensing
• diabetic foot ulcers
• thermistor
• wound management
• sensor network