OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study was to evaluate color changes and force degradation of orthodontic elastomeric ligatures in different stretching patterns during a 8-weeks period. METHODS: Two elastomers with the minimum and two with the maximum color changing, and gray elastomers of two brands (American Orthodontics and Ortho Technology) were selected according to an opinion poll wit...

Dielectric elastomers are a class of solid polymeric materials that sufficiently soft to deform under the application an electric field due interaction quasi-static charges. Their potential undergo large deformations renders them promising candidates for design energy harvesters, sensors and actuators. For their however, influence additional thermal effects should be taken into account as base ...

In this work, a recently developed 3D additive processing technology termed electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printing was employed to fabricate dielectric elastomer (DE) films by using styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene (SEBS) inks with the addition of high titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles. order improve dispersibility TiO2 in SEBS matrix, extracted walnut polyphenols were utilized for surface mod...

Dielectric elastomers are capable of large voltage-induced deformation, but achieving such large deformation in practice has been a major challenge due to electromechanical instability and electric breakdown. The complex nonlinear behavior suggests an important opportunity: electromechanical instability can be harnessed to achieve giant voltage-induced deformation. We introduce the following pr...