Subject to a voltage, a dielectric elastomer can deform substantially, making it a desirable material for actuators. Designing such an actuator, however, has been challenging due to nonlinear equations of state, as well as multiple modes of failure, parameters of design, and measures of performance. This paper explores these issues, using a spring-roll actuator as an example. We formulate the e...

(x 1 , . . . , x n ) ∈ Rn and t > 0, k 1 > 0 and k 2 > 0 are constants. The nonlinear termf(u) = O(u1+θ) and θ is a positive integer. Equation (1) is a model in variational form for the neoHookean elastomer rod and describes the motion of a neoHookean elastomer rod with internal damping; for more detailed physical background, we refer to [1]. In [1], the authors have studied a general class of ...

Dynamic change of the surface area and topology of elastomers is used as a general, environmentally friendly approach for effectively detaching micro- and macro-fouling organisms adhered on the elastomer surfaces. Deformation of elastomer surfaces under electrical or pneumatic actuation can debond various biofilms and barnacles. The bio-inspired dynamic surfaces can be fabricated over large are...

Dielectric elastomer generators (DEGs) are attractive candidates for harvesting electrical energy from mechanical work since they comprise relatively few moving parts and large elastomer sheets can be mass produced. Successfully demonstrations of the DEG prototypes have been reported from a diverse of energy sources, including ocean waves, wind, flowing water and human movement. The energy dens...

It is previously known that under inflation alone a spherical rubber membrane balloon may bifurcate into a pear shape when the tension in the membrane reaches a maximum, but the existence of such a maximum depends on the material model used: the maximum exists for the Ogden model, but does not exist for the neoHookean, Mooney-Rivlin or Gent model. This paper discusses how such a situation is ch...

An elastomer-based energy storage system for MEMS has been designed, built, and tested. Micro rubber bands have been fabricated from silicone using two different methods, laser-cut and molded, and assembled into silicon microstructures fabricated in a two-mask silicon-on-insulator (SOI) process. Using silicon hooks and force gauges designed in this process, these micro rubber bands have been ch...

The application of a sufficiently strong strain perpendicular to the pitch axis of a monodomain cholesteric elastomer unwinds the cholesteric helix. Previous theoretical analyses of this transition ignored the effects of Frank elasticity which we include here. We find that the strain needed to unwind the helix is reduced because of the Frank penalty and the cholesteric state becomes metastable ...

primary mgcl2.3.3etoh adduct (pct1) was prepared by melt quenching method and then submitted into a programmed thermal dealcoholation project using a fluidized bed reactor. during thermal dealcoholation program, different mgcl2.netoh support samples with n= 3.0, 2.7, 2.4, and 2.1 were selected and named as pct2 to pct5, respectively. structural analysis of the support samples showed a significa...