Rotary Motion Achieved by New Torsional Dielectric Elastomer Actuators Design

Waché, Rémi; McCarthy, Denis N.; Risse, Sebastian; Kofod, Guggi

doi:10.1109/tmech.2014.2301633

Cited by 21 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 8 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Similarly, we produced a rotational actuator through sequential activation of four segments of interpenetrating electrodes printed in a cylindrically symmetric arrangement (Figure d and Movies S5 and S6, Supporting Information). Notably, previous DEA rotational actuators had to be fabricated using prestrained membranes, due to limitations that arise from planar fabrication approaches. By using in‐plane electric fields, we can generate contractile forces in free‐standing elastomeric membranes that enable prestrain‐free rotational actuators to be realized.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

3D Printing of Interdigitated Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

Chortos

Hajiesmaili

Morales

et al. 2019

Adv Funct Materials

151

128

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are soft electromechanical devices that exhibit large energy densities and fast actuation rates. They are typically produced by planar methods and, thus, expand in-plane when actuated. Here, reported is a method for fabricating 3D interdigitated DEAs that exhibit in-plane contractile actuation modes. First, a conductive elastomer ink is created with the desired rheology needed for printing high-fidelity, interdigitated electrodes. Upon curing, the electrodes are then encapsulated in a self-healing dielectric matrix composed of a plasticized, chemically crosslinked polyurethane acrylate. 3D DEA devices are fabricated with tunable mechanical properties that exhibit breakdown fields of 25 V µm −1 and actuation strains of up to 9%. As exemplars, printed are prestrainfree rotational actuators and multi-voxel DEAs with orthogonal actuation directions in large-area, out-of-plane motifs.The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201907375.cycling and breakdown behavior [33][34][35] and the presence of a rigid frame limits the geometries that can be achieved. [24,36] Recent attention has been directed toward developing approaches that enable contractile displacements in prestrain-free DEAs, including manual and automated stacking of individual planar layers [37] or sequential deposition of active materials via inkjet printing [38] and spray coating. [39] The fabrication of contractile actuators with vertically oriented electrodes offers a more promising approach (Figure 1b). While arrays of vertical electrodes can be patterned lithographically, new masks must be generated for each device design. [40][41][42] By contrast, 3D printing enables the rapid design and fabrication of soft materials in nearly arbitrary geometries. [43][44][45][46][47] For example, direct ink writing (DIW), an extrusion-based 3D printing method, has been used to pattern soft functional materials, including sensors, [48] stretchable electronics, [49] liquid crystalline elastomers, [50] and soft robots. [51,52] While this method has recently been used to print DEAs, they do not exhibit an in-plane contractile response. [52][53][54] Here, we create 3D DEAs composed of interdigitated vertical electrodes that are printed, cured, and encapsulated in an insulating dielectric matrix (Figure 1c). These prestrain-free contractile DEAs can be produced in nearly arbitrary geometries. During their actuation, the stress generated is given by σ = ε 0 ε r (E) 2 , where ε 0 is the vacuum permittivity, ε r is the dielectric constant, and E is the electric field. For small strains, the actuation strain (s z ) is s z = σ/E Y = ε 0 ε r (E) 2 /E Y , where E Y is the Young's modulus. Their actuation performance is therefore maximized by increasing the breakdown field and dielectric constant, while simultaneously reducing the elastic modulus of the matrix. Since variations in the dielectric thickness can cause localization of the electric field that results in p...

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

3D Printing of Interdigitated Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

Chortos

Hajiesmaili

Morales

et al. 2019

Adv Funct Materials

151

128

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Zhao et al developed a prototype of a rotary joint for a flapping wing actuated by dielectric elastomer that may one day enable long distance, robotic flights . Waché et al demonstrated rotary motion with a torsional dielectric elastomer actuator design that could one day be applied for flight …”

Section: Devicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…294 Wachéet al demonstrated rotary motion with a torsional dielectric elastomer actuator design that could one day be applied for flight. 295 In addition to robotics, due to the artificial muscle-like nature of dielectric elastomers, their incorporation for biological applications should be expected. McCoul et al demonstrated the use of a biomimetic dielectric elastomer tubular actuator capable of controlling hydraulic flow by pinching a secondary silicone tube shut in the absence of a fluidic bias or voltage.…”

Section: Dielectric Elastomer Actuatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electronic Muscles and Skins: A Review of Soft Sensors and Actuators

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article reviews several classes of compliant materials that can be utilized to fabricate electronic muscles and skins. Different classes of materials range from compliant conductors, semiconductors, to dielectrics, all of which play a vital and cohesive role in the development of next generation electronics. This paper covers recent advances in the development of new materials, as well as the engineering of well-characterized materials for the repurposing in applications of flexible and stretchable electronics. In addition to compliant materials, this article further discusses the use of these materials for integrated systems to develop soft sensors and actuators. These new materials and new devices pave the way for a new generation of electronics that will change the way we see and interact with our devices for decades to come.

show abstract

“…In the field of DE, one of the main goals is to develop high‐performance DEAs. Based on the working principle, various configurations of DEAs are designed for extensive applications, such as planar, [ 58–66 ] multilayer stacked, [ 26,27,67–71 ] folded, [ 72,73 ] rolled, [ 24,74–78 ] diamond, [ 79–81 ] bending, [ 82–86 ] zipping, [ 87 ] balloon, [ 22,23,88–93 ] cone‐shaped, [ 94–101 ] hinge, [ 102–105 ] rotary, [ 106–110 ] and so on, as shown in Figure . The actuation performance of some existing DEAs is shown in Table 2 .…”

Section: Dielectric Elastomer Actuatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of Dielectric Elastomer Actuators and Their Applications in Soft Robots

Guo

Liu

et al. 2021

Advanced Intelligent Systems

166

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Robots play an increasingly important role in industrial production and daily life. Traditional robots are mostly made of hard materials, such as metal and plastic. Although rigidity of the material enables the traditional robot to perform tasks that are difficult for humans, for instance, carrying heavy objects, it also limits its adaptability. In nature, animals and plants are mostly made of soft materials, which make them have very high compliance and realize a variety of unimaginable actions. Similar to natural creatures, soft robots are usually composed of soft stimuli-responsive materials, which make them have good adaptability and compliance, and can achieve large deformation.Triggered by external stimuli, such as electric fields, magnetic fields, heat, and light, these soft stimuli-responsive materials can deform in a specific direction. The soft stimuli-responsive materials commonly used in soft robots include electroactive polymers (EAP), [1][2][3] hydrogels, [4][5][6][7] magnetic materials, [8][9][10] shape memory polymers (SMP), [11][12][13] shape memory alloys (SMA), [14,15] liquid crystal elastomers (LCE), [16][17][18] and so on. In addition, other actuation methods, such as pneumatic inflation and [19] electrostatic, [20,21] are also widely used in soft robots. To have an overview of different actuation methods, their performances with the maximum values are shown in Table 1. Although these maximum values were obtained from different actuators for each actuation method, they still demonstrate the potential upper limit.Dielectric elastomer (DE) is a typical EAP, which can generate significant deformation under the action of an external electric field. Thanks to its characteristics, such as large deformation, [22,23] fast response, [24,25] low elastic modulus, [2] high energy density, [26,27] light weight, [28,29] and low cost, [28] DE has the reputation of artificial muscles and has become one of the most promising materials in soft robots. [30][31][32][33][34] In this Review, we concentrate on the recent progresses of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) and their application in soft robots. In Section 2, we first introduce the working principle of DEAs, followed by the DE materials and compliant electrodes. Then, various DEAs with different designs are introduced. In Section 3, the application of DEAs in soft robots is divided into seven categories. Some recent highlights are described and discussed in detail, especially those with biological inspiration. We summarize some of the challenges in Section 4 and this is followed with the conclusion in Section 5. Dielectric Elastomer Actuators Working PrincipleGenerally, the structure of a DEA is similar to a sandwich, consisting of a DE membrane, where both surfaces are coated with compliant electrodes, as shown in Figure 1a. Once the compliant electrodes are subjected to voltage, an electric field will be generated in the membrane. The induced Maxwell stress causes the membrane to expand its area and contract its thickness. Based on the mechanism of ...

show abstract

Rotary Motion Achieved by New Torsional Dielectric Elastomer Actuators Design

Cited by 21 publications

References 8 publications

3D Printing of Interdigitated Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

3D Printing of Interdigitated Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

Electronic Muscles and Skins: A Review of Soft Sensors and Actuators

Review of Dielectric Elastomer Actuators and Their Applications in Soft Robots

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About