Patent ID: 8480870

Claim:
A method of manufacturing a sensor element of a gas sensor for detecting a predetermined gas component in a measurement gas, said method comprising the steps of: i) laminating a plurality of ceramic green sheets respectively corresponding to said plurality of layers to form a laminated body; ii) cutting said laminated body into a plurality of element bodies; and iii) burning said plurality of element bodies to obtain a plurality of sensor elements, said sensor elements including a laminated structure of a plurality of layers, having a long plate shape, including a gas inlet located at one end portion in a longitudinal direction thereof for taking the measurement gas from an external space into an inside thereof, having a size in the longitudinal direction of 62 mm or greater and 72 mm or smaller, and including a plurality of electrodes comprising a measuring electrode, wherein when a portion between a first position with a spacing of 20 mm from an end surface on said one end portion side and an end surface on the other end portion side of said sensor is a first section in said longitudinal direction, and an amount of flexure which is a parameter for representing the extent of flexure in a thickness direction of said sensor element is specified by a definition (a) below, in said step (iii), burning is performed while applying a pressure on a surface of said element body such that the amount of flexure in said first section is greater than or equal to 1/1360 and less than or equal to 1/670 of the size in the longitudinal direction of said sensor element, definition (a): in the case of calculating a regression line representing the relation of a position X in the longitudinal direction and a displacement Y in said thickness direction of said sensor element in a target section from a plurality of data set showing the relation of said position X and said displacement Y thereby to illustrate a plurality of data points representing said plurality of data sets and said regression line on an X-Y plane, and letting data points with a maximum distance from said regression line at an upper side and a lower side of said regression line among said plurality of data points be an upper side maximum displacement point and a lower side maximum displacement point, respectively, said amount of flexure is a sum of a distance from said regression line to said upper side maximum displacement point and a distance from said regression line to said lower side maximum displacement point.