title: Electrical impedance spectroscopy for electro-mechanical characterization of conductive fabrics.
abstract: When we use a conductive fabric as a pressure sensor, it is necessary to quantitatively understand its electromechanical property related with the applied pressure. We investigated electromechanical properties of three different conductive fabrics using the electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). We found that their electrical impedance spectra depend not only on the electrical properties of the conductive yarns, but also on their weaving structures. When we apply a mechanical tension or compression, there occur structural deformations in the conductive fabrics altering their apparent electrical impedance spectra. For a stretchable conductive fabric, the impedance magnitude increased or decreased under tension or compression, respectively. For an almost non-stretchable conductive fabric, both tension and compression resulted in decreased impedance values since the applied tension failed to elongate the fabric. To measure both tension and compression separately, it is desirable to use a stretchable conductive fabric. For any conductive fabric chosen as a pressure-sensing material, its resistivity under no loading conditions must be carefully chosen since it determines a measurable range of the impedance values subject to different amounts of loadings. We suggest the EIS method to characterize the electromechanical property of a conductive fabric in designing a thin and flexible fabric pressure sensor.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computational Science and Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749, Korea. tkbera77@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Tushar Kanti
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Bera
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Kyung Hee University, Yongin 446-701, Korea. usufcom@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Youssoufa
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Mohamadou
authors.affiliation: Department of Computational Science and Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749, Korea. imlkh84@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Kyounghun
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Kyung Hee University, Yongin 446-701, Korea. mogly1126@nate.com.
authors.forename: Hun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wi
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Kyung Hee University, Yongin 446-701, Korea. tioh@khu.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Tong In
authors.initials: TI
authors.lastname: Oh
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Kyung Hee University, Yongin 446-701, Korea. ejwoo@khu.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Eung Je
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Woo
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK. ms350@bath.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Manuchehr
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Soleimani
authors.affiliation: Department of Computational Science and Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749, Korea. seoj@yonsei.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Jin Keun
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Seo
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D058266:Dielectric Spectroscopy / Q000379:methods*; D004553:Electric Conductivity; D004864:Equipment and Supplies; D008422:Materials Testing; D011312:Pressure