Analysis of Polymers for Additive Manufacturing: Based Contact Pressure and Force Sensors

Tiziano Fapanni, Jacopo Agnelli, Raphael Rosa, Giuseppe Rosace, Francesco Baldi, Nicola Francesco Lopomo

2025

Abstract

The rapid advancements in Industry 4.0 and wearable technology have heightened the demand for flexible, robust, and sensitive sensors that can be integrated into diverse applications. This work investigates the potential of various polymeric materials, processed through additive manufacturing techniques such as Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) and Stereolithography (SLA), to act as transducers in contact pressure and force sensors. In this work, four possible polymeric materials were tested. Those materials were specifically selected to present both capacitive and piezoresistive transduction principles, aiming to develop flexible and highly sensitive sensors to pressure variations. In this frame, one of the key challenges is the hysteretic behavior typical of polymeric materials, which affects both mechanical (16.9 % on average) and electrical performance (20.7 % and 24.4% on average on capacitive and resistive devices, respectively). It must be underlined that significant variations were noted between the filled materials and the microstructured one, with the latter one being less stiff and able to withstand lower loads (up to 90 N) with an impressive 13-fold increase in sensitivity compared to thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU). This novel approach seems to pave the way for optimizable sensor performance in terms of sensitivity at low loads.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Fapanni T., Agnelli J., Rosa R., Rosace G., Baldi F. and Lopomo N. (2025). Analysis of Polymers for Additive Manufacturing: Based Contact Pressure and Force Sensors. In Proceedings of the 18th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: BIODEVICES; ISBN 978-989-758-731-3, SciTePress, pages 180-187. DOI: 10.5220/0013257100003911

in Bibtex Style

@conference{biodevices25,
author={Tiziano Fapanni and Jacopo Agnelli and Raphael Rosa and Giuseppe Rosace and Francesco Baldi and Nicola Lopomo},
title={Analysis of Polymers for Additive Manufacturing: Based Contact Pressure and Force Sensors},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 18th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: BIODEVICES},
year={2025},
pages={180-187},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013257100003911},
isbn={978-989-758-731-3},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 18th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: BIODEVICES
TI - Analysis of Polymers for Additive Manufacturing: Based Contact Pressure and Force Sensors
SN - 978-989-758-731-3
AU - Fapanni T.
AU - Agnelli J.
AU - Rosa R.
AU - Rosace G.
AU - Baldi F.
AU - Lopomo N.
PY - 2025
SP - 180
EP - 187
DO - 10.5220/0013257100003911
PB - SciTePress