Flexible tailored sensors for large deformation monitoring

During the last few decades a growing interest in monitoring and preserving strategic heritage and civil structures, has pushed the research towards the development of new devices and strategies for measuring the quantities of interest. The measuring strategies, based on innovative transducers, are required to avoid any significant influence on the monitored structure either in terms of functionality or aesthetics. The availability and the characterization of the materials is a key point in the development of new strategies able to achieve this goal. In the paper conductive elastomers are proposed for this class of applications and some results of their characterization as sensors for large deformation are reported.