3D Printed Capacitive Pressure Sensor with Corrugated Surface

Abstract

In this work a novel 3D printed capacitive pressure sensor with a corrugated surface is presented. The design composed of top and bottom plates. The sensor is 3D printed using a commercially available polymer material and then coated with Cr and Au with sputtering process. The dimensions of produced structure that designed is 11x11x4.6mm(3). Due to the corrugated surface, the area of the plates is increased 19.46% compared to a standard flat surface parallel plate capacitive sensor in the same bulk area. The design process of the sensor, simulation and the experimental results are given and explained in detail. The performance of the sensor is tested with various pressure levels between 0 Pa and 8.88 kPa. The experimental results show that the capacitance range of the sensor is 2.7 pF-4.3 pF. The maximum sensitivity of the sensor is obtained as 0.14 pF / kPa. The results confirm that the presented capacitive sensor can be utilized for carrying out pressure measurements.