Hysteresis and Material Effects of Printed Strain Gauges Embedded in Organic Coatings

This work reports on the hysteresis behavior and an initial baseline drift of printed strain gauges embedded in organic coating layers on sheet steel that we recently introduced. We subsequently investigated the performance over an extended period of time, which revealed interesting and partially unexpected material properties of printed strain gauges made from silver and carbon. Both silver- and carbon-based strain gauges show a hysteresis behavior of the gauge factor and non-negligible nonlinear characteristics. Furthermore, the carbon-based sensors show a strong initial base line drift within the first 50–100 cycles. All three effects, namely hysteresis, nonlinear gauge factor and initial base line drift, are confirmed within their respective standard deviations.