Multi-Criteria Selection of Adhesives for Wearable Textiles

Peeling behavior of soft materials is important in a wide range of applications, e.g., electronics, healthcare, etc. When applied on soft substrates, soft adhesives demonstrate unique mechanical behaviors compared to adhesives applied on rigid substrates. Adhesive properties can be conveniently measured by “peel testing”. The focus of this work is characterization of commercial glues on fabric substrates using commonly used peel tests. We investigate energy dissipation on textile substrates. For practical applications, we aim to develop a systematic approach for selecting adhesives for soft, flexible substrates. Here, we developed a multi-criteria framework for evaluating adhesives using data from peel tests. The criteria used here consider the shape and stability of the T-peel trace. The results of the multi-criteria evaluation were compared to traditionally used peel strength and fracture energy. Although E6000 produced the highest peel force (1.82±0.27 N mm−1) and the largest apparent fracture energy, Gc (8673±1545 J m−2), it showed large force oscillation (SSA=4.05±0.83 N). Fabri-Fuse was selected based on its low oscillation (SSA=0.69±0.29 N), lowest CoVFci(4.0%), high peel stability index (PSI), and high displacement at break. Functional evaluation showed that Fabri-Fuse increased strain-to-electrical-failure to 34.95±2.43%, higher than direct printing on fabric or printing on E6000 (highest peel strength). These results suggest that metrics that consider the shape of the peel trace and inter-sample repeatability provide a useful alternative for selecting adhesives other than highest peel strength.