Concealable strain sensing method for art preservation

A novel method to measure strain without mediation of stress has been developed to assess relative displacements in art objects responding to environmental fluctuations. The method uses a chip with a variable resistor composed of a Giant Magnetic Resistance (GMR) material. In a case study, the dimensional changes of wooden test vehicles subjected to sudden humidity changes at constant temperature inside a controlled environmental chamber were measured. Furthermore, an optimized sensor deployment and converging algorithm to increase the accuracy of the measurements was developed and applied. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.