Printed Stretchable Interconnects for Smart Garments: Design, Fabrication, and Characterization

This paper explores stretchability and fatigue life of inexpensive printed stretchable interconnects for smart garments. Multilayer stretchable interconnects are created on a knit fabric by screen printing of Ag/AgCl conductive inks on thermoplastic polyurethane film (TPU). Heat lamination of this l...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIEEE sensors journal Vol. 16; no. 22; pp. 7967 - 7976
Main Authors Yokus, Murat A., Foote, Rachel, Jur, Jesse S.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 15.11.2016
Subjects
Encapsulation
Fabrication
Fabrics
Flexible electronics
Ink
Printing
screen-printing
smart textiles
Strain
stretchable interconnects
wearable electronics
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Summary:This paper explores stretchability and fatigue life of inexpensive printed stretchable interconnects for smart garments. Multilayer stretchable interconnects are created on a knit fabric by screen printing of Ag/AgCl conductive inks on thermoplastic polyurethane film (TPU). Heat lamination of this layer onto a knit fabric and its protective encapsulation with a second TPU layer yields a multilayer stretchable interconnect structure. Design and optimization of the printed meandering interconnects are performed experimentally. The effect of processing steps, area of substrate, and encapsulation layers on the electro-mechanical properties of the stretchable interconnects are investigated. Washing endurance of the printed lines is also explored. The meandering stretchable printed line demonstrates stretchability of over 100% strain and fatigue life of 1000 cycles at 20% strain. Washing endurance of 100 cycles is reported. This paper presents an inexpensive method of realization of electronics integration on textiles by maintaining textile comfort and wearability.
ISSN:1530-437X
1558-1748
DOI:10.1109/JSEN.2016.2605071