“…The FE results are in agreement with the cracking pattern found in the tested samples, as shown in Fig. 6(c), where it is possible to see that higher cracking density is achieved in the conductive track regions right next to the regions covered by the encapsulant, as was also noted and analyzed for simpler geometries in previous publications [16], [17]. While the encapsulant protects from surface cracking under tensile deformation, in fact, it also promotes the formation of stiffer regions, which in turn strongly influence the overall deformation behavior under tensile load.…”