%0 Journal Article
%T Experimental Investigation of the Cross-Sensitivity and Size Effects of Polyvinylidene Fluoride Film Sensors on Modal Testing
%A Kuo-Chih Chuang
%A Chien-Ching Ma
%A Hong-Cin Liou
%J Sensors
%D 2012
%I MDPI AG
%R 10.3390/s121216641
%X Due to advantages such as light weight, flexibility, and low cost, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) films have been widely used in engineering applications as sensors for detecting strain, pressure, or micro-force. However, it is known that PVDF strain sensors have strain cross-sensitivity in mutually orthogonal directions. Furthermore, the size of the PVDF film sensor would also affect the dynamic strain sensing performance. In this paper, to investigate the cross-sensitivity and size effects experimentally, we employ PVDF film sensors to perform dynamic measurements on a cantilever beam. Since the vibrations of the cantilever beam are excited by impacts of a steel ball, the induced highly repeatable transient responses contain a wide range of resonant frequencies and thus can be used to investigate both the size and cross-sensitivity effects of the PVDF film sensors in a dynamic sensing environment. Based on the experimental results of the identified resonant frequencies compared with results obtained from a strain gauge, finite element calculations, and theoretical predictions, suggestions for the use of the PVDF strain sensor in modal testing are given in this paper.
%K PVDF film sensor
%K cantilever beam
%K cross-sensitivity
%K size effect
%K transient response
%U http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/12/12/16641