As stretchable devices become well established for applications in soft robotics and wearable devices, the compliant conductors that make these applications possible must also be reliable and survive for the entire device lifetime. Liquid metals such as Galinstan are a potential solution as non‐toxic, stretchable, and low‐resistance conductors. Rigorous investigations of liquid metal lifetimes, however, are limited. This work presents the median lifetime of liquid metal‐filled silicone tubes under current density on the order of 1 kAcm−2, which is necessary for applications such as electromagnetic actuators. In these conductors, the median lifetime increases by a factor of over 4700 as current decreases from 2 to 1 kAcm−2. By cooling the sample, median failure time increases from 112 s to 9.4 h, which suggests straightforward solutions to maximize liquid metal wire lifetime by increasing thermal conductivity or by duty cycling the applied current.
Origami patterns have previously been investigated for novel mechanical properties and applications to soft and deployable robotics. This work models and characterizes the mechanical and electrical properties of origami-patterned capacitive strain sensors. Miura-patterned capacitors with different fold angles are fabricated with a silicone body and foil electrodes. The planar strain sensitivity ratio is tunable from 0.2 to 0.5 with fold angles, while all-soft patterns demonstrate low mechanical tunability through fold angle. We conclude by offering recommendations for designing and modeling future origami-patterned soft material sensors.
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