Fiber dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are potential candidates for the realization of artificial muscles owing to, amongst others, their linear actuation principle. In this work, a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) hollow fiber is prepared through a spinning method using the photocurable thiol-ene reaction between a thiol (R-SH) group and a double bond (C=C). The developed PDMS hollow fiber has an external diameter of 463 μm and uniform wall thickness of 78 μm, and presents tensile properties of ~600 % strain at break and 0.22 MPa strength, compared to these of the planar film of 86 % strain at break and 0.14 MPa tensile strength. Fiber DEAs are prepared by using ionic liquid as an inner electrode and ionogel as an electrical outer sheath. Due to the highly transparent PDMS elastomer layer and ionic liquid-based electrodes, the fiber DEA presents a transparency of ~91 % in a visible light spectrum. The fiber DEA exhibits a large linear strain of 9 % at 50 V/μm. Furthermore, the fiber DEA can be assembled into bundles for increased forces. The work presented herein provides a pathway for creating active soft matter with complex architectures to enable fast programmable actuation for multiple applications including invisible robots.
Dielectric elastomers (DEs) have shown a significant potential for actuation applications such as artificial muscles, due to their low weight, fast response, silent operation, and high efficiency. DEs with large actuation strain or low driving voltages are usually incorporated with high permittivity fillers. Ionic liquid (IL) presents a promising improvement on relative permittivity of DEs, however, its aggregation in the elastomer matrix by the physical blending modification has limited the improvement on actuating performances. In this study, a new strategy is developed to prepare high-performance PDMS elastomers by the formation of bis(1-ethylene-imidazole-3-ium) bromide between the PDMS backbones, after which the actuation performance of the IL-modified elastomer is investigated.
Dielectric elastomers (DEs) can undergo very large spatial deformations in response to an externally applied electrical field, giving them significant potential as soft actuators. High-performance DEs are usually modified by high-permittivity additives, which are used to lower driving voltages. In this study, a novel high-permittivity soft additive (LMS-EIL) was developed via the combination of high-permittivity ionic liquid (IL) and chloropropyl-silicone, enabling good compatibility with the silicone matrix. The relative dielectric permittivity of the novel silicone oil additive was 9×104 times higher at 0.1Hz compared to pristine chloropropyl-silicone oil. High-permittivity silicone elastomers were then achieved via incorporation of this novel IL-grafted chloropropyl-silicone oil. The relative dielectric permittivity of elastomers modified with 10 parts per hundred rubber (phr) LMS-EIL increased from 3.0 (pure film) to 22 at 0.1Hz, while the Young’s modulus decreased steadily with increasing LMS-EIL concentration. A simplified figure of merit (Fom') was used to evaluate actuation performance, and was shown to be 8.1 for the elastomer incorporated with 10 phr LMS-EIL, indicating excellent potential for use as an actuator.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.