Modeling and simulation of dielectric elastomer actuators

Wissler, Michael; Mazza, Edoardo

doi:10.1088/0964-1726/14/6/032

Cited by 228 publications

(172 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…30%-155% (Huang and Suo, 2012;Lu et al, 2012;) Mooney-Rivlin model Wissler and Mazza, 2005) Ogden model Coulbourne, 2011;Proulx et al, 2011;Qu and Suo, 2012) 3 Viscoelasticity of DEs…”

Section: Non-ideal Desmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The shape of the elastomer is recovered if the voltage is removed. Nowadays, the typical operating voltage for DE functioning falls into the range 500 V to 10 kV, and the areal strain can be as much as 1000% (Wissler and Mazza, 2005;Zhang et al, 2005;Li T.F. et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The functioning, capability, and reliability of actuators made of DEs have been theoretically and computationally modeled in different configurations, such as cylindrical (Carpi and de Rossi, 2004), spherical (Mockensturm and Goulbourne, 2006), pre-strained circular (Wissler and Mazza, 2005;Chen and Dai, 2012), and so on, in which particular forms of strain energy function have been shown to adequately represent the material constitutions and describe their actuation behaviors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mechanics of dielectric elastomers: materials, structures, and devices

Qian

2016

JZUS-A

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Dielectric elastomers (DEs) respond to applied electric voltage with a surprisingly large deformation, showing a promising capability to generate actuation in mimicking natural muscles. A theoretical foundation of the mechanics of DEs is of crucial importance in designing DE-based structures and devices. In this review, we survey some recent theoretical and numerical efforts in exploring several aspects of electroactive materials, with emphases on the governing equations of electromechanical coupling, constitutive laws, viscoelastic behaviors, electromechanical instability as well as actuation applications. An overview of analytical models is provided based on the representative approach of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, with computational analyses being required in more generalized situations such as irregular shape, complex configuration, and time-dependent deformation. Theoretical efforts have been devoted to enhancing the working limits of DE actuators by avoiding electromechanical instability as well as electric breakdown, and pre-strains are shown to effectively avoid the two failure modes. These studies lay a solid foundation to facilitate the use of DE materials, structures, and devices in a wide range of applications such as biomedical devices, adaptive systems, robotics, energy harvesting, etc.

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“…30%-155% (Huang and Suo, 2012;Lu et al, 2012;) Mooney-Rivlin model Wissler and Mazza, 2005) Ogden model Coulbourne, 2011;Proulx et al, 2011;Qu and Suo, 2012) 3 Viscoelasticity of DEs…”

Section: Non-ideal Desmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mechanics of dielectric elastomers: materials, structures, and devices

Qian

2016

JZUS-A

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“…13,14 The "Maxwell pressure," calculated in Eq. (1) below and experimentally validated by a number of researchers, notably Pelrine, 14 Kofod,16 and Wissler,17 has become the standard interpretation of electromechanical coupling for the DE actuator. In the equation, r Maxwell is the Maxwell pressure, e o and e r are the absolute and relative dielectric permittivities, respectively, V is the voltage and d is the thickness of the membrane r Maxwell ¼ e 0 e r V d…”

Section: Introduction-dielectric Elastomer (De) Background and Funmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-functional dielectric elastomer artificial muscles for soft and smart machines

Anderson

Gisby²,

McKay³

et al. 2012

Journal of Applied Physics

544

306

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Dielectric elastomer (DE) actuators are popularly referred to as artificial muscles because their impressive actuation strain and speed, low density, compliant nature, and silent operation capture many of the desirable physical properties of muscle. Unlike conventional robots and machines, whose mechanisms and drive systems rapidly become very complex as the number of degrees of freedom increases, groups of DE artificial muscles have the potential to generate rich motions combining many translational and rotational degrees of freedom. These artificial muscle systems can mimic the agonist-antagonist approach found in nature, so that active expansion of one artificial muscle is taken up by passive contraction in the other. They can also vary their stiffness. In addition, they have the ability to produce electricity from movement. But departing from the high stiffness paradigm of electromagnetic motors and gearboxes leads to new control challenges, and for soft machines to be truly dexterous like their biological analogues, they need precise control. Humans control their limbs using sensory feedback from strain sensitive cells embedded in muscle. In DE actuators, deformation is inextricably linked to changes in electrical parameters that include capacitance and resistance, so the state of strain can be inferred by sensing these changes, enabling the closed loop control that is critical for a soft machine. But the increased information processing required for a soft machine can impose a substantial burden on a central controller. The natural solution is to distribute control within the mechanism itself. The octopus arm is an example of a soft actuator with a virtually infinite number of degrees of freedom (DOF). The arm utilizes neural ganglia to process sensory data at the local “arm” level and perform complex tasks. Recent advances in soft electronics such as the piezoresistive dielectric elastomer switch (DES) have the potential to be fully integrated with actuators and sensors. With the DE switch, we can produce logic gates, oscillators, and a memory element, the building blocks for a soft computer, thus bringing us closer to emulating smart living structures like the octopus arm. The goal of future research is to develop fully soft machines that exploit smart actuation networks to gain capabilities formerly reserved to nature, and open new vistas in mechanical engineering.

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“…Describing time variations in DEAs has not been addressed by the EAP community to date and are important because they provide difficulties for implementing a control scheme. Time variations due to relaxation have been studied by [20], however they are not able to explain the behaviour discussed in this work.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Control-focused, nonlinear and time-varying modelling of dielectric elastomer actuators with frequency response analysis

Jacobs

Wilson

Assaf

et al. 2015

Smart Mater. Struct.

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ReuseUnless indicated otherwise, fulltext items are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. The copyright exception in section 29 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows the making of a single copy solely for the purpose of non-commercial research or private study within the limits of fair dealing. The publisher or other rights-holder may allow further reproduction and re-use of this version -refer to the White Rose Research Online record for this item. Where records identify the publisher as the copyright holder, users can verify any specific terms of use on the publisher's website. TakedownIf you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing eprints@whiterose.ac.uk including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. Control September 2014Abstract. Current models of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are mostly constrained to first principal descriptions that are not well suited to the application of control design due to their computational complexity. In this work we describe an integrated framework for the identification of control focused, data driven and time-varying DEA models that allow advanced analysis of nonlinear system dynamics in the frequency-domain. Experimentally generated input-output data (voltagedisplacement) was used to identify control-focused, nonlinear and time-varying dynamic models of a set of film-type DEAs. The model description used was the nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous input (NARX) structure. Frequency response analysis of the DEA dynamics was performed using generalised frequency response functions (GFRFs), providing insight and a comparison into the time-varying dynamics across a set of DEA actuators. The results demonstrated that models identified within the presented framework provide a compact and accurate description of the system dynamics. The frequency response analysis revealed variation in the time-varying dynamic behaviour of DEAs fabricated to the same specifications. These results suggest that the modelling and analysis framework presented here is a potentially useful tool for future work in guiding DEA actuator design and fabrication for application domains such as soft robotics.

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Modeling and simulation of dielectric elastomer actuators

Cited by 228 publications

References 18 publications

Mechanics of dielectric elastomers: materials, structures, and devices

Mechanics of dielectric elastomers: materials, structures, and devices

Multi-functional dielectric elastomer artificial muscles for soft and smart machines

Control-focused, nonlinear and time-varying modelling of dielectric elastomer actuators with frequency response analysis

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