Dielectric elastomer actuators operating principle

Actuators based on dielectric elastomer technology operate on a simple principle as shown in Figure 10.4. When an electric field is apphed to the electrodes, positive charges appear on one... 

Fig. 6.1 Operational principle of the dielectric elastomer actuator, from [Chuc et al. (2011)] with permission from IEEE, Copyright 2011.

Actuators based on dielectric elastomer technology operate on the simple principle shown in Figure 20.1. When a voltage is applied across the compliant electrodes, the polymer shrinks in thickness and expands in area. 

Figure 20.1 Principle of operation ofdieiectric eiastomer actuators, (a) Functionai element of dielectric elastomer actuators. Polymer film compresses in thickness and expands in area when a voltage is applied across the film, (b) Typical thickness or planar strain in response to applied...

The multi-stacked actuator is designed to be directly driven by the Maxwell stress without any strain as mentioned above. Its fundamental principle of operation is shown in Fig. 7.1. When a voltage is applied between the two electrode layers, Maxwell stress is produced and thus, the dielectric elastomer is compressed along the axial direction. The compression of each layer results in the lateral expansion of the actuator because of the incompressibility of the polymer. Consequently, the deformation of the multi-stacked actuator is the summation of the deformations of individual layers and, thus, the total deformation is expressed as follows. 

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