Linear actuation in coextruded dielectric elastomer tubes

As a widely used configuration for dielectric elastomer (DE) actuators, DE tube actuators (or cylindrical actuators) are also found to be susceptible to electromechanical instability (EMI), which may lead to a premature electrical breakdown (EB), and inhibit the potential actuation of DE actuators. This work investigates the electromechanical response of a DE tube actuator with and without boundary constraints to demonstrate an alternative to avoid EMI while achieving large actuation. Our simulation results based on the Gent strain energy model show that the EMI of a DE tube actuator can be eliminated, and larger actuation deformation can be achieved by applying boundary constraints. As a result of these constraints, consideration is also given to the possible mechanical buckling failure that may occur. Mechanisms of possible failure modes of constrained and unconstrained DE tube actuators, such as electromechanical instability, electrical breakdown and mechanical buckling, are elucidated. This paper should provide better theoretical guidance on how to improve the actuation performance of DE actuators, thus leading to the optimal design of DE-based devices.

Mechanical to electrical energy conversion is a well-established energy transduction approach. However, cases in which a mechanical energy source is not available call for new approaches to harvest electrical energy. In the present study, we demonstrate energy harvesting in soft dielectric elastomer (DE) tubes. Broadly, energy harvesting is obtained through inflation of the tube, electrical charging of the DE layer, and deflation, which results in a decrease in capacitance and an increase in voltage. We propose two methods to mechanically charge (or inflate) the system: (1) active, in which the tube is inflated through the application of mechanical pressure, and (2) passive, in which a passive cylindrical component placed inside the DE tube deforms radially in response to an environmental stimulus such as thermal excitation or water uptake and inflates the DE tube. To demonstrate passive charging, we consider gels as the passive component and employ well-known models with the properties of the commonly employed DE VHB 4910 to simulate the mechanical response of the system and estimate the harvested electrical energy. Our findings reveal that energy-densities in the order of ∼10–50 mJ cm–3 can be harvested. The proposed approach and the inclusion of a passive component to mechanically charge the system opens new opportunities to generate energy in environments lacking traditional mechanical energy sources.

Dielectric Elastomers (DE) are incompressible dielectrics which can experience deviatoric (isochoric) finite deformations in response to applied large electric fields. Thanks to the strong electro-mechanical coupling, DE intrinsically offer great potentialities for conceiving novel solid-state mechatronic devices, in particular linear actuators, which are more integrated, lightweight, economic, silent, resilient and disposable than equivalent devices based on traditional technologies. Such systems may have a huge impact in applications where the traditional technology does not allow coping with the limits of weight or encumbrance, and with problems involving interaction with humans or unknown environments. Fields such as medicine, domotic, entertainment, aerospace and transportation may profit. For actuation usage, DE are typically shaped in thin films coated with compliant electrodes on both sides and piled one on the other to form a multilayered DE. DE-based Linear Actuators (DELA) are entirely constituted by polymeric materials and their overall performance is highly influenced by several interacting factors; firstly by the electromechanical properties of the film, secondly by the mechanical properties and geometry of the polymeric frame designed to support the film, and finally by the driving circuits and activation strategies. In the last decade, much effort has been focused in the devolvement of analytical and numerical models that could explain and predict the hyperelastic behavior of different types of DE materials. Nevertheless, at present, the use of DELA is limited. The main reasons are 1) the lack of quantitative and qualitative models of the actuator as a whole system 2) the lack of a simple and reliable design methodology. In this thesis, a new point of view in the study of DELA is presented which takes into account the interaction between the DE film and the film supporting frame. Hyperelastic models of the DE film are reported which are capable of modeling the DE and the compliant electrodes. The supporting frames are analyzed and designed as compliant mechanisms using pseudo-rigid body models and subsequent finite element analysis. A new design methodology is reported which optimize the actuator performances allowing to specifically choose its inherent stiffness. As a particular case, the methodology focuses on the design of constant force actuators. This class of actuators are an example of how the force control could be highly simplified. Three new DE actuator concepts are proposed which highlight the goodness of the proposed method.

This paper presents a new design of an artificial muscle actuator called tube-spring actuator (TSA) that is fabricated with dielectric elastomer. The new actuator construction includes two steps: the first is that a cylindrical actuator is manufactured with dielectric elastomer with multi-layer lamination process. Then a compressed spring is inserted to inside the tube as the second step of the process. The inner spring is used to maximize the axial deformation while constraining the radial contraction. This design enables effective linear actuation with largest amount strain. The monitored strain of active length is up to 15 percents. The manufactured actuator is applied to a robot hand as an example of the actual application.

A membrane of dielectric elastomer undergoes a large deformation when it is subjected to a voltage through the thickness. Due to the attributes of light weight and high energy density, dielectric elastomers are suitable for electromechanical actuators and generators. In this work, the phenomenon of electromechanical phase transition is demonstrated experimentally in a tube of dielectric elastomer subjected to an internal pressure, an axial force and a voltage. When the voltage exceeds a critical value, the homogeneous deformation becomes unstable, and the tube deforms into coexistent states of bulged and unbulged sections. At the transition voltage the unbulged sections gradually bulge up and propagate. Two stable states are observed at the end of the phase transition process: one is coexistent states of the bulged and unbulged sections; the other is the wholly bulged tube. The achieved maximum voltage-induced deformation of the tube is 2200% in area, and the electromechanical energy conversion density is estimated to be 1.13 J g−1. These results are beyond the largest values reported in the literature. A theoretical analysis based on thermodynamics is carried out to qualitatively explain the observed experimental phenomenon.

Dielectric elastomers (DEs)-based electromechanical cylindrical actuators are applicable in the field of biomimetic, robotics, microfluidic pumps and similar instrumental devices. However, to achieve efficient actuation performance, significant attention is requisite towards influences of pre-strain on electromechanical properties. This study shows the effect of pre-strain-induced variation in dielectric permittivity to improve the performance of the existing model for a cylindrical actuator. Modified electromechanical model is proposed for a thin-walled actuator configuration. The hypothesis of linear elasticity for small deformation is used to derive the novel model for voltage-induced axial strain. The analytical results shows improved axial actuation strain with relatively less errors and the values are found in good agreement with experimental results. This may encourage future researchers to identify crucial parameters on the way to design and optimization of soft actuators.

A pressurized dielectric elastomer (DE) diaphragm under electrical actuation can experience snap-through large deformation due to electromechanical instability, which was shown to be a promising mechanism for large volume fluid pumping. However, snap-through actuation in a DE fluid pump will not occur when the inlet pressure to the pump is small and cannot be robustly utilized for different applications. To solve this problem, in this study, we proposed a dual-membrane DE pump design featuring an active DE membrane interacting with a passive elastic membrane. This design enabled snap-through of the DE membrane over a wide range of inlet pressures, making it feasible for large volume fluid pumping even at low pressures. Merits of this dual-membrane DE actuator design were experimentally verified; for example, the pumping volume of the dual-membrane DE pump could be as large as 3944% of the pumping volume of the conventional single-membrane DE pump. We further proposed an analytical framework to describe the mechanism of the dual-membrane DE fluid pump, involving the superimposition of the pressure-volume curves of the active and passive membranes. The theoretically predicted equilibrium states agreed well with experimental observations. Findings in this study will broaden the applications of the DE actuator in scenarios where a large pumping volume is needed over a wide range of pressures.

Tendon driven actuators are getting mature in electroactive polymer (EAP) researches. Research and development of the dielectric elastomer (DE) actuator from EAP family, have produced significant progress for decades. Dielectric elastomer is used in this paper to model a micro actuator platform. The parallel platform designing in this paper consists of the kinematics of the platform that is suited for micro structure of the robotic link. This may use for redundant manipulator or snake robot structure. DE is silicon artificial muscles that will actuated by applying voltage which perform a great actuation due to its linear large deflection. A remarkable amount of work has focused on delivering the feasibility of the robotic application of DE material. However, few commercial products equipped with polymer actuators have been introduced in the market, probably because most of the research has been dedicated either to discovering new actuation properties of the polymeric material. Therefore, this polymer is used to model the tendon driven parallel platform actuator for robotic application in this research. In this actuator design, both the upper and lower platforms are of configurations of equilateral triangles with DE cables attached close to the vertices. One DE cable attaches each of the vertices of the lower platform to the vertices directly above it on the upper platform. The three tendons thus enable the platform to exhibit 3 degrees of freedom (DOF). The dielectric polymers are attached with the three edges of the platforms that act like compression-tension cable because of their linear deformation characteristics. Therefore the platform of the DE actuator model is achieved in this research. This actuator can be used to develop redundant robot like snake robot or elephant trunk robot.

Aiming at noise isolation in low frequency range, this paper presents a novel kind of membrane sound insulator featuring a bistable actuation, by combining magnets and multilayer dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA). With a critical applied voltage on DEA, it deforms and the magnets attract in terms of a bistable snapping, which leads to an abrupt stiffness shift, and consequently regulates the sound transmission loss peak frequency. An electromechanical model is established to reveal the bistable characteristics and to study the effect of voltage and structure parameters for design optimization. The sound-insulation measurement experiment verifies the tunable acoustic performance. The sound-insulation peak frequency has a maximum shift of 142, 130, and 141 Hz under voltages of 2000, 2500, and 3000 V, respectively, showing an advancing figure of merit compared with the existed acoustic metamaterial based on dielectric elastomer.

Wave propagation in hollow dielectric elastomer cylinders is studied. The quasi-static deformation of the tube owing to a combination of radial electric field and mechanical loading is determined first. Two combinations are accounted for, one at which the tube is free to expand in the axial direction, and another at which the tube is axially pre-stretched and restricted from elongating. Subsequently, longitudinal axisymmetric incremental motions are superposed on the underlying state. The governing equations in the tube and in the surrounding space are formulated and a numerical procedure is used in order to solve the resulting set of equations. The fundamental mode in the frequency spectrum is determined for thin, intermediate and thick wall tubes. The influences of the tube geometry, the mechanical pre-stretch and particularly the electric bias field are examined. An important observation is the ability to manipulate the propagation of the waves by adjusting the electromechanical bias field. This infers the use of dielectric elastomers in tubular configurations as active waveguides or isolators by a proper tuning of the electrostatic stimuli.

Dielectric elastomers (DE), known as electromechanical transducers, have been widely used in the field of sensors, generators, actuators and energy harvesting for decades. A large number of DE actuators including bending actuators, linear actuators and rotational actuators have been designed utilizing an experience design method. This paper proposes a new method for the design of DE actuators by using a topology optimization method based on pairs of curves. First, theoretical modeling and optimization design are discussed, after which a rotary dielectric elastomer actuator has been designed using this optimization method. Finally, experiments and comparisons between several DE actuators have been made to verify the optimized result.

Dielectric elastomer actuators are ideal drivers for next-generation soft robots due to their large electroactive deformations. However, conventional dielectric elastomers suffer from insufficient breakdown strength and high mechanical loss, which limits their ability to meet the demanding requirements of advanced robotics for high energy and power densities. Herein, we propose a versatile strategy for incorporating organic molecular semiconductors into the dielectric elastomer network. This design simultaneously achieves high breakdown strength (82 V μm-1), desirable modulus, elasticity, and large electro-actuation strain (174%). Consequently, the optimized elastomer delivers a high energy density (169 J kg-1) and an ultrahigh power density (3000 W kg-1), surpassing natural muscle by 8-fold and outperforming all reported dielectric elastomers. A demonstrated light-emitting, fast-moving soft robot further highlights the material's multifunctional application potential.

Biomimetic, entirely soft robots with animal-like behavior and integrated artificial nervous systems will open up totally new perspectives and applications. However, until now, most presented studies on soft robots were limited to only partly soft designs, since all solutions at least needed conventional, stiff electronics to sense, process signals and activate actuators. We present a novel approach for a set up and the experimental validation of an artificial pace maker that is able to drive basic robotic structures and act as artificial central pattern generator. The structure is based on multi-functional dielectric elastomers (DEs). DE actuators, DE switches and DE resistors are combined to create complex DE oscillators (DEOs). Supplied with only one external DC voltage, the DEO autonomously generates oscillating signals that can be used to clock a robotic structure, control the cyclic motion of artificial muscles in bionic robots or make a whole robotic structure move. We present the basic functionality, derive a mathematical model for predicting the generated signal waveform and verify the model experimentally.

Artificial Muscles based on Dielectric Elastomers (DE) can potentially enable the realization of bio-inspired actuation systems whose intrinsic compliance and damping can be varied according to the task requirements. Nonetheless, the control of DE-based Variable Impedance Actuators (VIA) is not trivial owing to the non-linear viscoelastic response which characterizes the acrylic dielectrics commonly employed in practical devices. In this context, the purpose of the present paper is to outline a novel strategy for the control of DE-based VIA. Although the proposed methodology is applicable to generic DE morphologies, the considered system is composed of a couple of conically-shaped DE films in agonistic-antagonistic configuration. Following previously published results, the system dynamic model is firstly recalled. Then, a DE viscoelasticity compensation technique is outlined together with a control law able to shape the DE actuator impedance as desired. The operative limits of the system are explicitly considered and managed in the controller by increasing the operating DE actuator stiffness if required. In addition, the problem of model uncertainties compensation is also addressed. Finally, as a preliminary step towards the realization of a practical DE-based VIA, the proposed control approach is validated by means of simulations.

Dielectric elastomers (DEs) exhibit significant potential applications as soft robots. Due to complicated electromechanical coupling behavior, DEs generate a strong nonlinear oscillation, which may induce the undesired failure and other instabilities. Based on the DE slide actuators (DESAs), we deduce a viscoelastic dynamic model by incorporating the inertial forces and viscous dampings in all three principal directions. Numerically, calculations are utilized to detect the dynamic properties of the DESA. By employing the established model, the special phenomenon of pinnacle elimination in nonlinear oscillation is achieved. The dynamic loss of tension instability in both two DE membranes of the DESA is also analyzed. Effects of the voltage amplitude, the mass bar, the length ratio between two membranes, and the prestretches of DEs are considered and discussed, respectively.