In the current study, strain sensors based on two polymer matrixes of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and conductive nanomaterials of the silver nanowires (AgNWs) were fabricated. The sensors were arranged with a sandwich like morphology in which AgNWs layer(s) were embedded with polymeric layers of PDMS or TPU. The effect of the polymer matrix type and the number of the conductive layers on sensor properties has been evaluated. Morphology and electromechanical properties of the sensors including electrical resistance (R), sensitivity of the resistance change to strain, linearity of the resistance change with strain and repeatability of the sensor response to cyclic loading were analyzed. The experimental results corroborated that with increasing conductive layers from one to three, the resistance decreased by 53% and 61% in respective PDMS and TPU based sensors. Moreover, the sensitivity decreased by 78% and 77% in PDMS and TPU based sensors, respectively. The calculation of the relative SD (RSD) of the maximum ΔR/R₀ values substantiated that sensors were able to represent a repeatable response to the sequential loading/unloading cycles. The repeatability was decreased with increasing conductive layers from one to two, and then augmented with further increase in conductive layers. With respect to polymer type, the resistance and repeatability of the TPU based sensors was higher than the PDMS counterparts, whereas the sensitivity of the TPU based sensors was lower than the PDMS ones.

中文翻译：

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用于医疗应用的基于聚合物/银纳米线纳米复合材料的应变传感器的制造：基于硅氧烷的与基于氨基甲酸酯的纳米复合材料

在当前的研究中，基于聚二甲基硅氧烷（PDMS）和热塑性聚氨酯（TPU）的两种聚合物基体和银纳米线（AgNWs）的导电纳米材料制造了应变传感器。传感器以三明治状形态排列，其中AgNWs层嵌入PDMS或TPU的聚合物层。已经评估了聚合物基体类型和导电层数量对传感器性能的影响。分析了传感器的形态和机电性能，包括电阻（R），电阻对应变的敏感性，电阻随应变的线性变化以及传感器对循环载荷的重复性。实验结果证实，随着导电层从一增加到三，在基于PDMS和TPU的传感器中，电阻分别降低了53％和61％。此外，基于PDMS和TPU的传感器的灵敏度分别降低了78％和77％。最大ΔR/ R的相对SD（RSD）的计算₀值表示传感器能够表示对顺序加载/卸载循环的可重复响应。随着导电层从一增加到两，可重复性降低，然后随着导电层的进一步增加而增加。对于聚合物类型，基于TPU的传感器的电阻和重复性高于PDMS，而基于TPU的传感器的灵敏度低于PDMS。