Study on the effect of temperature variation on the sensitivity of PVDF strain sensors and compensation method

Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) piezoelectric films have been widely used in strain measurement due to their excellent dynamic response characteristics. However, in real-world environments, temperature variations can significantly affect their measurement accuracy, thereby compromising the reliability of the results. To address this issue, this study first calibrates the sensitivity coefficient of a PVDF strain sensor under quasi-static conditions and systematically investigates the impact of temperature changes on measurement accuracy in a simulated thermal environment. The results revealed that temperature variations have a notable influence on the sensitivity coefficient of PVDF, which exhibits a strong linear relationship with temperature. Based on this finding, a novel temperature compensation method was proposed, utilizing the linear correlation between strain sensitivity coefficient of PVDF and temperature variation, and its effectiveness was validated through experiments. The results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly improves the measurement accuracy of PVDF strain sensors under temperature variations, effectively reducing temperature-induced errors. This study not only clarifies the underlying mechanism by which temperature affects PVDF sensitivity and measurement bias, but also provides a reliable compensation strategy, offering practical guidance for the deployment of PVDF strain sensors in temperature-varying environments.