• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.77 no.2
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• pp.167-177
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• 2021

Due to various benefits such as unlimited degrees of freedom, environment adaptability, and safety for humans, engineers have used soft materials with hyperelastic behavior in various industrial, medical, rescue, and other sectors. One of the applications of these materials in the fabrication of bending soft actuators (SA) is that they have eliminated many problems in the actuators such as production cost, mechanical complexity, and design algorithm. However, SA has complexities, such as predicting and monitoring behavior despite the many benefits. The first part of this paper deals with the prediction of SA behavior through mathematical models such as Ogden and Darijani, and its comparison with the results of experiments. At first, by examining different geometric models, the cubic structure was selected as the optimal structure in the investigated models. This geometrical structure at the same pressure showed the most significant bending in the simulation. The simulation results were then compared with experimental, and the final gripper model was designed and manufactured using a 3D printer with silicone rubber as for the polymer part. This geometrical structure is capable of bending up to a 90-degree angle at 70 kPa in less than 2 seconds. The second section is dedicated to monitoring the bending behavior created by the strain sensors with different sensitivity and stretchability. In the fabrication of the sensors, silicon is used as a soft material with hyperelastic behavior and carbon fiber as a conductive material in the soft material substrate. The SA designed in this paper is capable of deforming up to 1000 cycles without changing its characteristics and capable of moving objects weigh up to 1200 g. This SA has the capability of being used in soft robots and artificial hand making for high-speed objects harvesting.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.13 no.3 s.55
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• pp.101-109
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• 2009

An algorithm is proposed for estimating dynamic displacements of a bridge by using FBG sensors and by superposing some measurable low modes. Modal displacements are obtained from the beam theory and the generalized coordinates are deduced from the strains measured by FBG sensors. By considering flexural and torsional modes occurred in bridges only as flexural modes of a simply supported beam by separating a bridge into multiple girders or parts, the proposed algorithm can be applied to various types of bridges. Guidelines are provided theoretically for determining the number of modes and the number of strain gages to be used. The proposed algorithm has been examined through simulation studies on various types of bridges, laboratory experiments on a model bridge, and field tests on a simple span PC Box girder bridge. Through the simulation study, the effects of the error in the vibration modes and measurement noise on estimating the dynamic displacements are analyzed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.142-149
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• 2009

This paper proposes and demonstrates novel flexible contact force sensing devices for 3-dimensional force measurement. To realize the sensor, polyimide and polydimethylsiloxane are used as a substrate, which makes it flexible. Thin-film metal strain gauges, which are incorporated into the polymer, are used for measuring the three-dimensional contact forces. The force sensor characteristics are evaluated against normal and shear load. The fabricated force sensor can measure normal loads up to 4N. The sensor output signals are saturated against load over 4N. Shear loads can be detected by different voltage drops in strain gauges. The device has no fragile structures; therefore, it can be used as a ground reaction force sensor for balance control in humanoid robots. Four force sensors are assembled and placed in the four corners of the robot's sole. By increasing bump dimensions, the force sensor can measure load up to 20N. When loads are exerted on the sole, the ground reaction force can be measured by these four sensors. The measured forces can be used in the balance control of biped locomotion system.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.41 no.7
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• pp.613-620
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• 2017

A metal-coated FBG (fiber Bragg grating) sensor has a memory effect, which can recall the maximum strains experienced by the structure. In this study, a nickel-coated FBG sensor was fabricated through electroless (i.e., chemical plating) and electroplating. A thickness of approximately $43{\mu}m$ of a nickel layer was achieved. Then, we conducted cyclic loading tests for the fabricated nickel-coated FBG sensors to verify their capability to produce residual strains. The results revealed that the residual strain induced by the nickel coating linearly increased with an increase in the maximum strain experienced by the sensor. Therefore, we verified that a nickel-coated FBG sensor has a memory effect. The fabrication methods and the results of the cycle loading test will provide basic information and guidelines in the design of a nickel-coated FBG sensor when it is applied in the development of structural health monitoring techniques.

• Nano
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• v.13 no.11
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• pp.1850126.1-1850126.10
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• 2018

Flexible strain sensors, as the core member of the family of smart electronic devices, along with reasonable sensing range and sensitivity plus low cost, have rose a huge consumer market and also immense interests in fundamental studies and technological applications, especially in the field of biomimetic robots movement detection and human health condition monitoring. In this paper, we propose a new flexible strain sensor based on thick CVD graphene film and its low-cost fabrication strategy by using the commercial adhesive tape as flexible substrate. The tensile tests in a strain range of ~30% were implemented, and a gage factor of 30 was achieved under high strain condition. The optical microscopic observation with different strains showed the evolution of cracks in graphene film. Together with commonly used platelet overlap theory and percolation network theory for sensor resistance modeling, we established an overlap destructive resistance model to analyze the sensing mechanism of our devices, which fitted the experimental data very well. The finding of difference of fitting parameters in small and large strain ranges revealed the multiple stage feature of graphene crack evolution. The resistance fallback phenomenon due to the viscoelasticity of flexible substrate was analyzed. Our flexible strain sensor with low cost and simple fabrication process exhibits great potential for commercial applications.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.214-220
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• 2019

The calibration method of the initial value error obtained in the weight measurement through anchor bolt type strain gauge sensor is proposed. The strain gauge sensor is developed for preventing the overturning of forklift, which is the most frequent type of safety-accident in industry. It was confirmed that the initial value error is caused from the physical and mechanical error of anchor bolt, and the environmental problem. Since the elimination of these causes falls outside the realm of this research, we find out the calibrated values based on all the causes, and we adjust the initial values of analog-to-digital convertor (ADC) module consisted of strain gauge sensor block using the calibrated values. We use the linear interpolation method for our calibration. We confirm that four sensor modules have the different under 5% between the real weight and the measured value in the experiment applied with the calibration of initial values. The low correlation between the real weights and ADC values is also improved through the proposed calibration.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.125-147
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• 2020

Damage detection of structures is one of the most important topics in structural health monitoring. In practice, the response is not available at all structural degrees of freedom, and due to the installation of sensors at some degrees of freedom, responses exist only in limited number of degrees of freedom. This paper is investigated the damage detection of structures by applying two approaches, AllDOF and Dynamic Condensation Method (DCM), based on the Modified Modal Strain Energy Method (MMSEBI). In the AllDOF method, mode shapes in all degrees of freedom is available, but in the DCM the mode shapes only in some degrees of freedom are available. Therefore by methods like the DCM, mode shapes are obtained in slave degrees of freedom. So, in the first step, the responses at slave degrees of freedom extracted using the responses at master degrees of freedom. Then, using the reconstructed mode shape and obtaining the modified modal strain energy, the damages are detected. Two standard examples are used in different damage cases to evaluate the accuracy of the mentioned method. The results showed the capability of the DCM is acceptable for low mode shapes to detect the damage in structures. By increasing the number of modes, the AllDOF method identifies the locations of the damage more accurately.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.303-308
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• 2004

This paper descibes on the characteristics of Ta-N(tantalum nitride) ceramic thin-film strain gauges which were deposited on Si substrates by DC reactive magnetron sputtering in an argon-nitrogen atmosphere (Ar-$(4{\sim}16%)N_{2}$) for high-temperature applications. These films were annealed in $2{\times}10^{-6}$ Torr vacuum furnace at the range of $500{\sim}1000^{\circ}C$. Optimum deposition atmosphere and annealing temperature were determined at $900^{\circ}C$ for 1 hr. in 8% $N_{2}$ gas flow ratio. Under optimum formation conditions, the Ta-N thin-film for strain gauges was obtained a high-resistivity of $768.93{\mu}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$, a low temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) of -84 ppm/$^{\circ}C$ and a good longitudinal gauge factor (GF) of 4.12.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.294-299
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• 2001

Recently great efforts and investment have been made in order to develop a structural health monitoring technology using fiber optic sensors. Therefore, in this study, we have focused on the development of a fiber optic BOTDA (Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis) sensor system in order to measure strains distributed on large structures by an optical fiber. The fiber optic BOTDA sensor was constructed simply, with only two electro-optic modulators. The results of strain measurement tests of an optical fiber showed that the strain can be determined accurately from the Brillouin frequency shift measurement on the strain induced range of 10 m in the total fiber length of 4.8 kIn using 200 averaged signals. Also, the strain sensitivity of Samsung single mode fiber was 4.81 MHz/O.Ol % under the test. test.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.190-202
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• 2018

Maintaining the integrity of the major equipment in nuclear power plants is critical to the safety of the structures. In particular, the soundness of the piping is a critical matter that is directly linked to the safety of nuclear power plants. Currently, the limit state of the piping design standard is plastic collapse, and the actual pipe failure is leakage due to a penetration crack. Actual pipe failure, however, cannot be applied to the analysis of seismic fragility because it is difficult to quantify. This paper proposes methods of measuring the failure strain and deformation angle, which are necessary for evaluating the quantitative failure criteria of the steel pipe elbow using an image measurement system. Furthermore, the failure strain and deformation angle, which cannot be measured using the conventional sensors, were efficiently measured using the proposed methods.