A Novel Multidimensional Tensile, Shear, and Buckling Sensor for the Measurement of Flexible Fibrous Materials

To meet the complex and diverse demands for low-stress mechanical measurements of fabrics and other flexible materials, two integrated multidimensional force sensors with the same structure but different ranges were explored. They can support both rapid and precise low-noise, high-precision, low-cost, easy-to-use, reliable, and intelligent solutions for the complex measurement of fabric mechanics. Having analysed the mechanical relationship of the parallel beam theory, and considering the specific requirements of fabric measurement, a novel multi-dimensional force sensor is designed, capable of measuring tensile, shear, and buckling properties. Finite element analysis is used to simulate the mechanical performance of this sensor for fabric-loading/unloading measurement, and the sensitivity of the mechanical quantity transfer, the amount of sensor deformation, the stress distribution, and the degree of inter-dimensional coupling have been investigated and verified. The basis for subsequent digital processing is achieved by a low-offset, low-temperature-drift, low-power-consumption analogue front end, 24-bit ADC circuit, and signal conditioning electronics, suitable for the measurement of fabric mechanics under low stress, which is like the end-user requirements. The sensor information channel is supported by a host microcontroller with a DSP and a floating-point processing instruction set. Information processing is performed in time-sharing with the support of a multitasking real-time operating system. The purpose of designing this sensor is to facilitate the development of a new testing instrument, which will adopt the advances of current instruments whilst eliminating their shortcomings.