title: Dependence of the impact response of polyvinylidene fluoride sensors on their supporting materials' elasticity.
abstract: Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) is popular sensing material because of its unique piezoelectric characteristics. In this work an impact sensor was prepared from a sandwiched structure PVDF film, and the related detection circuits were presented. The dependence of the PVDF sensors' response on the elasticity of the supporting materials was examined and discussed. Here two response indexes were discussed, which were the peak-to-peak voltage (Vpp) and the recovery time. Firstly, falling impact experiments were executed on desk-supported PVDF sensors (100 mm PVDF film) using free falls of different weights from different heights. Then the same shock experiments were repeated on the same sensor, but changing the backstops to a sponge and rubber, respectively. On the desk, the values of Vpp were bigger than when the other two backstops were used; but the changes of the impact energy could not be reflected by the PVDF sensor when it was supported by a hard material. It was found that the biggest sensitivity of the voltage response (about 96.62 V/J) was obtained by the sponge-supported sensor; for the same sensor, when it was supported by rubber, the slope was 82.26 V/J. Moreover, the recovery time for the desk-supported sensor was almost constant, varying from 0.15 to 0.18 s, while for the same sensor supported by sponge or rubber, its recovery time changed with the shifting of the impact energy in the range of 0.02~0.36 s, but no pattern could be found in the recovery-time characteristics.
authors.affiliation: The College of Information Technical Science, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China. jiayf@nankai.edu.cn
authors.forename: Yunfang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.forename: Xinjuan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Qingshan
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Ni
authors.forename: Longhua
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Cheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ju