Highly deformable actuators made of dielectric elastomers clamped by rigid rings

Highly deformable actuators made of dielectric elastomers clamped by rigid rings

by rigid rings Tongqing Lu, Choon Chiang Foo, Jiangshui Huang, Jian Zhu, and Zhigang Suo State Key Lab for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures, International Center for Applied Mechanics, School of Aerospace Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, 710049 Xi’an, China School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Kavli Institute for Nanobio Science and Technology, Harvard University, C...

Dielectric elastomers as next-generation polymeric actuators

Due to their versatile properties, robust behavior, facile processability and low cost, organic polymers have become the material of choice for an increasing number of mature and cutting-edge technologies. In the last decade or so, a new class of polymers capable of responding to external electrical stimulation by displaying significant size or shape change has emerged. These responsive materia...

Computational model of deformable lenses actuated by dielectric elastomers

A recent design of deformable lens mimics the human eye, adjusting its focal length in response to muscle-like actuation. The artificial muscle is a membrane of a dielectric elastomer subject to a voltage. Here, we calculate the coupled and inhomogeneous deformation of the lens and the dielectric elastomer actuator by formulating a nonlinear boundary-value problem. We characterize the strain-st...

Electroactive Thermoplastic Dielectric Elastomers as a New Generation Polymer Actuators

Functional Soft Robotic Actuators Based on Dielectric Elastomers

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are a promising soft actuator technology for robotics. Adding robotic functionalities—folding, variable stiffness, and adhesion—into their actuator design is a novel method to create functionalized robots with simplified actuator configurations. We first propose a foldable actuator that has a simple antagonistic DEA configuration allowing bidirectional actu...