Piezoelectric and Electrostrictive Polymer Actuators Fundamentals

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 

Biomedical Applications of Electroactive Polymer Actuators Edited by Federico Carpi and Elisabeth Smela 2009 John Wiley Sons Ltd. ISBN 978-0-470-77305-5 

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. 

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This book intends to provide a comprehensive and updated insight into both the fundamentals of each class of EAP, and examples of the most significant applications of EAP actuators in the biomedical field, either already demonstrated or currently under development. Eor this purpose, the book comprises five sections devoted to the most technologically mature EAPs, namely polymer gels, ionic polymer-metal composites, conjugated polymers, piezoelectric/electrostrictive polymers and dielectric elastomers. Each section is... 

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