Design of thin-film polyvinylidene fluoride sensor rosettes for isolation of various strain components

Thin-film polyvinylidene fluoride piezoelectric sensors have long been recognized as a promising alternative to traditional metal foil strain gauges in applications where only dynamic or quasistatic signals are of interest. Compared to metal foil strain gauges, polyvinylidene fluoride sensors feature high sensitivity, high dynamic range, and broad frequency bandwidth. However, transverse sensitivity of the polyvinylidene fluoride sensor is higher than that of a metal foil strain gauge, making it more difficult to isolate a particular strain component or a deformation mode when the host structure is under complex loading. In addition, polyvinylidene fluoride films are sensitive to changes in ambient temperature due to the pyroelectric effect. In this article, three temperature-compensated polyvinylidene fluoride sensor rosette designs are proposed for isolating specific strain component(s) and deformation mode(s) of interest. First-principles based models are derived to relate the polyvinylidene fluoride sensor rosette output to the actual elastic strain component of interest. Experimental validation is conducted to verify the proposed models and to compare the performance of the polyvinylidene fluoride sensor rosettes with their metal foil strain gauge counterparts.