Improvement of the performance of a capacitive relative pressure sensor: case of large deflections

Abstract. Capacitive pressure sensors are widely used in a variety of applications and are built using a variety of processes, including 3D printing technology. The use of this technology could lead us to a situation of large deflections, depending on the mechanical properties of the materials and the resolution of the machines used. This aspect is rarely reported in previous research works that focus on improving the performance in terms of linearity and sensitivity of these sensors. This paper describes the realization of relative pressure sensors designed as two different structures; the first one is the classical design composed of a single capacitor, while the second one is composed of two capacitors, designed in such a way that they both vary according to the applied pressure but in opposite senses to each other. The purpose is to study in particular the performance of the second structure in the case of large deflections for the context of educational use. Polylactic acid (PLA) is used as the manufacturing material to print the sensors by means of a printer based on fused deposing modeling, while conductive materials are used to provide the electrical conductivity required for the printed sensors. The manufactured sensors were tested under pressure in the range of [0; 9] KPa. Compared to the performance obtained with the first structure, simulation and experimental results show that the second structure improves linearity and allows the sensitivity to be increased from a minimum of 9.98 × 10 - 2  pF/hPa to a minimum of 3.4 × 10 - 1  pF/hPa.