Papers by Author: László Valenta

Abstract: Silicone rubber is an essential construction material in food industry, medicine and in some fields of mechanical engineering, because it has special mechanical, electrical, biological and other special properties. Over the usage of silicone rubber as structural material, the “intelligent” behaviour is more and more important. In this case the question arises whether its optical properties change by the effect of mechanical load or deformation Can it be used like sensor, utilizing these properties The paper shows the newest result of our optical research in connection with silicone rubber and shows the possibility of its usage for optical strain and force sensor, using its birefringence.

Abstract: Silicone rubber is an essential construction material in food industry, medicine and in some fields of mechanical engineering, because it has good mechanical, electrical, biological and other special properties. One needs to know these material properties in order to develop silicone sensors. We performed several standard measurements for rubber, like tensile strength, cyclic tensile, bending, fatiguing, stress relaxation tests etc. To investigate the electrical properties, we measured the resistance of silicone during the mechanical tests. The paper summarizes the newest results of our research in connection with mechanical and electrical properties of conductive silicone rubber.

Abstract: The paper summarises the results of our investigations on the conductive silicone rubber as strain sensor. The dynamic behaviour of silicone rubber shows strong nonlinearity and because of the relaxation and creep the sensor can not be used for static measure. The greatest advantage of this material lies in its high elasticity. The commercial strain metallic or semiconductor gauges work in the range of 10-7<ε<10-3 . With the new silicone rubber sensor one can achieve elongations typically in the range of 10-2<ε<102 so this sensor offers new possibilities for the measure and control of high elasticity structures. The fatigue tests show that dynamic behaviour of the sensor silicone is stable.