Electromechanical stability and dynamic analysis of dielectric elastomer plane actuators

Abstract

As a kind of electroactive soft polymer which contains molecular chains cross-linking to each other to form a 3D network, the dielectric elastomers have extraordinary attractive advantages such as large deformation, high responsive speed, high efficiency, and high elastic energy density. This paper investigated the stability and dynamic characteristics of dielectric elastomer plane actuators. By using the Mooney-Rivlin elastic strain energy model within two material parameters, the free energy function of the dielectric elastomer thermodynamic system was obtained. Nominal stress and nominal electric field of the system were achieved, and the electromechanical stability of silicone and VHB acrylic dielectric elastomer were analyzed. What's more, based on the Lagrangian dynamic equation, the control equation of the dielectric elastomer thermodynamic system was put forward, and the influence of the electric field on the dynamic system was also analyzed. The developed model would be helpful in the future research of dielectric elastomer based high performance actuators.