Effect of Poling Methods on the Functional Properties of Fused Deposition Modeling Printed Polyvinylidene Fluoride for Sensing Application

The demand for high performance piezoelectric sensors fabricated through additive manufacturing (AM) is growing due to a flexibility of designing complex structures in AM. In the present work, polyvinylidene fluoride as a piezoelectric material was fabricated by Material Extrusion process with different number of layers such as single, double, and triple at constant layer thickness for sensing applications. To enhance its functional properties, the fabricated materials were subjected to poling by two different types such as contact poling and corona poling process. The effects of poling on the β-phase formation of polyvinylidene fluoride fabricated by Material Extrusion process were explored to reveal the improvement in piezoelectric characteristics. x-ray Diffraction and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy characterization of the poled samples confirmed the presence of β-phase. The results of the piezoelectric coefficient (d₃₃) measurement show that the Corona poled sample produces higher output value of 34 (pC/N) than the non-poled one 2 (pC/N). To better understand the response of the corona poled sample, the COMSOL-based simulation was conducted, and the results were evaluated using the compressive tests performed on the sample poled by the corona poling process.