E-M polymers

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In last decade, there have been breakthroughs that have led to major improvements in the E-M performance of polymeric materials. The newly developed E-M polymers, which are also called electroactive polymers (EAPs) or artificial muscles, exhibit a much better E-M performance than traditional E-M polymers and better than either crystals or... 

In this chapter, the fundamentals of E-M materials and the properties of typical E-M polymers are reviewed, after which some challenges and issues related to the apphcation of these polymers are discussed. 

The Xm of an E-M material is directly related to the displacement generated in an actuator. For most piezoelectric ceramics and polymers, Xm is about 0.1-0.2 %, while the newly developed E-M polymers exhibit a strain response of more than 5%, in some cases achieving as much as 100 %. This makes it possible to create actuators that exhibit a giant displacement. measures the maximum force needed to maintain the zero displacement when the material is under electric field. For an E-M polymer with a linear elastic response, Fb can be expressed as Fb=Fxj . Due to their low Young s modulus, E-M polymers usually exhibit a small block force compared to E-M ceramics. 

The unique properties of polymeric materials, namely their flexibility, light weight and easy processing, open up new possibihties for E-M devices. Recent developments have shown that E-M polymers can exhibit far better E-M performance than traditional polymers, crystals and ceramics [1]. However, there are also problems due to issues such as their low block force, limited range of frequencies and the requirement for a high electric field. Nevertheless, E-M polymers offer exciting new challenges for scientists and researchers. 

C -E-Polymer + E C -E-E-Polymer C -E-Polymer + M C -M-E-Polymer C -M-Polymer + E C -E-M-Polymer C -M-Polymer + M C -M-M-Polymer... 

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