Characterization of dielectric elastomer actuators made of slide ring materials

Shintake, Jun; Matsuno, Koya; Baba, Kazumasa; Takeuchi, Hiromitsu

doi:10.1117/12.2513653

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…In addition, the dielectric constant of the composite is 17.4 at 50 wt% BT. In our previous work, an SRM-DEA was found to exhibit 5% actuation strain at 20 V µm −1 [30]. Kakizaki et al have revealed that SRMs in a specific composition generates a large bending actuation with fast response time (180 • achieved within 0.4 s) [31].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Characterization of slide ring materials for dielectric elastomer actuators

Shintake

Matsuno

Baba

et al. 2022

Smart Mater. Struct.

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This paper investigates the characteristics of sliding ring materials (SRMs), which are promising elastomeric materials for dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs). Two different types of SRMs with Young's modulus of 0.8 MPa and 3.3 MPa, respectively, are prepared, and their material and mechanical properties and electro-mechanical performances at electric fields of up to 30 V/um are characterized. For comparison, the same tests are also performed on several commercially available elastomers: Elastosil 2030, Ecoflex 00-30, CF19-2186, and VHB 4905. The results reveal that SRMs demonstrate negligible Mullins effect and hysteresis, while their dielectric strength (62.4‒112.4 V/µm) and viscoelasticity (tan⁡δ 0.07‒0.24 at 10 Hz) are comparable or even superior to those of other elastomers. In addition, elongation at break is found to be 163.8‒172.1%. SRMs exhibit excellent electro-mechanical performance; for instance, one of the two types has an actuation force 293.2 mN at 24.9 V/µm and a strain of 5.2% at 22.3 V/µm. These values are the largest or larger than most of the tested elastomers. The high performance of SRMs results from their dielectric constant, which ranges from 10.3‒13.4, leading to an electro-mechanical sensitivity of up to 15.3 MPa-1. These results illustrate SRMs as attractive material options for DEAs.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Characterization of slide ring materials for dielectric elastomer actuators

Shintake

Matsuno

Baba

et al. 2022

Smart Mater. Struct.

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“…The most common dielectric materials used for DEAs are silicones, polyurethanes, and acrylics. Recently, a new type of elastomer called a slide-ring material (SRM) has attracted growing attention for use in DEAs [22][23][24][25][26][27]. SRM is based on polyrotaxanes, where the crosslinking sites are free to slide along the polymer chains [28].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…SRM is based on polyrotaxanes, where the crosslinking sites are free to slide along the polymer chains [28]. SRMs is of interest for DEA applications because it has favorable mechanical properties similar to silicone rubber but much higher permittivity (ε r ≈ 5-12) [23,24,27]. However, no assessment of the lifetime of SRM DEAs has been reported so far.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automated test setup to quantify the lifetime of dielectric elastomer actuators under a wide range of operating conditions

Kühnel¹,

Albuquerque²,

Py³

et al. 2021

Smart Mater. Struct.

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We present an automated test setup for the systematic performance and lifetime evaluation of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs). This setup, called the MAPLE setup, performs accelerated aging tests and allows quantifying how material choice, fabrication methods, voltage waveform, and environmental conditions influence DEA lifetime, an important step for commercial use of DEAs. The setup continuously monitors strain and electrode resistance of multiple DEAs under a wide range of environmental conditions (up to 85 °C and 85% relative humidity), with automatic breakdown detection to record device lifetime. To illustrate a use case, we investigate the lifetime of DEAs made of two different elastomer materials, comparing fixed polarity (FP) vs. periodically reversing the polarity of the actuation voltage. For DEAs made from a slide-ring material, lifetime improvements around 10× were observed at alternating polarity compared to FP. For DEAs made from silicone rubber, no improvement in lifetime was observed. This indicates that different degradation mechanisms are causing failure in the two materials.

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“…While the production of PEG/α-CD polyrotaxanes has reached a commercial scale, their inclusion in silicone networks has been limited [13,14]. The slide-ring materials that have been utilized for DEA fabrication have so far been restricted to poly-ε-caprolactone grafted systems, which have a relatively high elastic modulus (∼1 MPa) compared to silicone elastomers [15][16][17]. The use of polysiloxanes or other network chemistries with polyrotaxane cross-linkers is generally restricted by the low reactivity of the pure polyrotaxanes as well as immiscibility issues [18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Novel polyrotaxane cross-linkers as a versatile platform for slide-ring silicone

2021

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Slide-ring elastomers have garnered a lot of interest for their potential use in dielectric elastomer actuators due to their intrinsically soft nature and high elasticity. However, the use of sliding cross-linkers has been constrained by their low miscibility with commonly used elastomer precursors and the specialized curing chemistries that are necessary for incorporating them into networks. Here, we have presented a method to produce vinyl functional polyrotaxane cross-linkers that are compatible with polysiloxanes and can be processed by industrially scalable methods. The sliding silicone films that were fabricated with these novel cross-linkers were highly extensible (>350%) and did not exhibit strain hardening even at high elongation. The composite films also retained the favorable dielectric properties of silicone elastomers such as the characteristic low dielectric loss. The modified polyrotaxanes present a robust platform for producing a new class of sliding silicone elastomers with well-defined networks structures.

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Characterization of dielectric elastomer actuators made of slide ring materials

Cited by 5 publications

References 17 publications

Characterization of slide ring materials for dielectric elastomer actuators

Characterization of slide ring materials for dielectric elastomer actuators

Automated test setup to quantify the lifetime of dielectric elastomer actuators under a wide range of operating conditions

Novel polyrotaxane cross-linkers as a versatile platform for slide-ring silicone

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