Printing Reconfigurable Bundles of Dielectric Elastomer Fibers

Chortos, Alex; Mao, Jie; Mueller, J. Howard; Hajiesmaili, Ehsan; Lewis, Jennifer A.; Clarke, David R.

doi:10.1002/adfm.202010643

Cited by 88 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…The value of actuation strain observed from the linear-type DEFA (1.3% at ~20 V/µm) is comparable or even better than other DEAs of similar types reported in the literature (~0.5% at ~40 V/µm [23], ~1.8% at ~12 V/µm [24], and ~1% at ~20 V/µm [26]). This may result from using the surrounding water as the ground electrode, avoiding a dedicated electrode layer that normally acts as a passive component.…”

Section: Defassupporting

confidence: 78%

“…We used this actuation method with the aqueous electrode-filled tube because it can simplify the actuator structure, which would simplify the fabrication and modeling. There have been several studies on fiber-like DEAs in the literature [23][24][25][26]; however, none of these studies used aqueous electrodes and actuation in a water environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dielectric Elastomer Fiber Actuators with Aqueous Electrode

2021

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Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are one of the promising actuation technologies for soft robotics. This study proposes a fiber-shaped DEA, namely dielectric elastomer fiber actuators (DEFAs). The actuator consisted of a silicone tube filled with the aqueous electrode (sodium chloride solution). Furthermore, it could generate linear and bending actuation in a water environment, which acts as the ground side electrode. Linear-type DEFA and bending-type DEFA were fabricated and characterized to prove the concept. A mixture of Ecoflex 00–30 (Smooth-On) and Sylgard 184 (Dow Corning) was employed in these actuators for the tube part, which was 75.0-mm long with outer and inner diameters of 6.0 mm and 5.0 mm, respectively. An analytical model was constructed to design and predict the behavior of the devices. In the experiments, the linear-type DEFA exhibited an actuation strain and force of 1.3% and 42.4 mN, respectively, at 10 kV (~20 V/µm) with a response time of 0.2 s. The bending-type DEFA exhibited an actuation angle of 8.1° at 10 kV (~20 V/µm). Subsequently, a jellyfish-type robot was developed and tested, which showed the swimming speed of 3.1 mm/s at 10 kV and the driving frequency of 4 Hz. The results obtained in this study show the successful implementation of the actuator concept and demonstrate its applicability for soft robotics.

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Section: Defassupporting

confidence: 78%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dielectric Elastomer Fiber Actuators with Aqueous Electrode

2021

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“…For example, silica is a common rheological modifier for elastomer-based inks. 25,61 For inks in which a high content of particles is beneficial (e.g., conductive inks), 62 it is desirable to have a continuous phase with low viscosity and particles with a low driving force to…”

Section: Direct Ink Writementioning

confidence: 99%

“…20 3D printing is a subset of additive manufacturing approaches that includes vat photopolymerization, selective laser sintering, two-photon lithography, and extrusion printing. 21,22 Among these printing approaches, extrusion-based methods have demonstrated suitability for deposition of multiple materials [23][24][25][26] that allow the creation of electronic devices with multiple functionalities (conductors, semiconductors, dielectrics, and biological components). 27 As there are several reviews that emphasize the early work in the field of printed conjugated polymers, 28,29 this review will discuss recent papers and provide commentary on emerging directions and future prospects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extrusion 3D printing of conjugated polymers

Chortos

2021

Journal of Polymer Science

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Conjugated polymers combine electronic charge transport properties with the ability to transport ions, enabling transduction between ionic and electronic currents. Many applications of conjugated polymers, such as biointerfaces, actuators, and energy storage, benefit from 3D structures. Among different methods for 3D fabrication, extrusion-based 3D printing is a versatile approach that is compatible with multimaterial fabrication processes. This review summarizes progress in the emerging field of 3D printed conjugated polymers using three extrusion printing processes: direct ink write, meniscus-guided printing, and electrohydrodynamic printing. Ink designs for direct in write are described in depth, including strategies for modifying the rheology and conductivity of the inks.

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“…For example, in Grasinger et al [52], it was shown that applying an initial shear deformation and appropriate constraints leads to a shear-mode of electromechanical actuation; and, in Hajiesmaili and Clarke [53], the authors varied electrode geometries through multiple layers of DEs in order to create spatially varying electric fields and realize shape-morphing. Similar types of mechanisms-namely, introducing (possibly heterogeneous) inital stresses, heterogeneous (elastic) material properties, and/or heterogeneous electric fields-have even been used to develop dielectric elastomer-based robotic grippers [6,[19][20][21], shape-morphing fibers [54], and shape-morphing circular sheets [55]. These recently developed electromechanical mechanisms show the excellent potential of dielectric elastomers for achieving biomimetic actuation and soft actuation with a large number of degrees of freedom.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Statistical mechanics of a dielectric polymer chain in the force ensemble

Grasinger,

Dayal,

deBotton

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Constitutive modeling of dielectric elastomers has been of long standing interest in mechanics. Over the last two decades rigorous constitutive models have been developed that couple the electrical response of these polymers with large deformations characteristic of soft solids. A drawback of these models is that unlike classic models of rubber elasticity they do not consider the coupled electromechanical response of single polymer chains which must be treated using statistical mechanics. The objective of this paper is to compute the stretch and polarization of single polymer chains subject to a fixed force and fixed electric field using statistical mechanics. We assume that the dipoles induced by the applied electric field at each link do not interact with each other and compute the partition function using standard techniques. We then calculate the stretch and polarization by taking appropriate derivatives of the partition function and obtain analytical results in various limits. We also perform Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations using the Metropolis and umbrella sampling methods, as well as develop a new sampling method which improves convergence by exploiting a symmetry inherent in dielectric polymer chains. The analytical expressions are shown to agree with the Monte Carlo results over a range of forces and electric fields. Our results complement recent work on the statistical mechanics of electro-responsive chains which obtains analytical expressions in a different ensemble.

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Printing Reconfigurable Bundles of Dielectric Elastomer Fibers

Cited by 88 publications

References 78 publications

Dielectric Elastomer Fiber Actuators with Aqueous Electrode

Dielectric Elastomer Fiber Actuators with Aqueous Electrode

Extrusion 3D printing of conjugated polymers

Statistical mechanics of a dielectric polymer chain in the force ensemble

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