Fabrication and Characterization of Polypyrrole/Polyurethane/Polyamide/Polyamide Yarn-Based Strain Sensor

Yarn-based strain sensors serve as essential elements for wearable electronics in the applications of personal health monitoring, motion detection, and smart garments. In the paper, a yarn-based strain sensor was created by coating conductive polymer, polypyrrole(PPy), onto a double covered elastic yarn, i. e., polyurethane/polyamide/polyamide ( PU/PA/PA ) yarn. Surface morphology of the yarn-based strain sensors demonstrates that the PPy conductive particles are evenly distributed on the surface of the PA multi-filaments as well as immersed into the PU core. Cyclic tensile test is conducted to characterize the electro-mechanical performance of the yarn-based strain sensor. The mechanical hysteresis of the sensor is low, which mainly comes from the geometrical change of the PA filaments around the PU core. However, the electro-mechanical hysteresis of the sensor is large mainly due to the unrecoverable cracks of the PPy layers on the PU core.