STRAIN MEASUREMENT IN FABRICS PART I: GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN EXTENSIBLE STRAIN SENSOR

Almost all end-uses of fabrics make use of the ability of fabrics to suffer strains that are very large compared to engineering strains. This paper is the first of a series devoted to the measurement of large strains in fabrics. This paper considers some of the problems of fabric strain measurement and describes the use of piezoelectric polyvinylidene fluoride film as the active element in an extensible strain sensor. Strain sensors based on this film are suitable for use with many industrial fabrics, for measuring strains that vary over time with periods of a few seconds or less.