Journal ArticleDOI
Giant voltage-induced deformation in dielectric elastomers near the verge of snap-through instability
Tiefeng Li,Tiefeng Li,Christoph Keplinger,Christoph Keplinger,Richard Baumgartner,Siegfried Bauer,Wei Yang,Zhigang Suo +7 more
TLDR
In this article, the authors place a dielectric elastomer near the verge of snap-through instability, trigger the instability with voltage, and bend the snapthrough path to avert electric breakdown.Abstract:
Dielectric elastomers are capable of large voltage-induced deformation, but achieving such large deformation in practice has been a major challenge due to electromechanical instability and electric breakdown. The complex nonlinear behavior suggests an important opportunity: electromechanical instability can be harnessed to achieve giant voltage-induced deformation. We introduce the following principle of operation: place a dielectric elastomer near the verge of snap-through instability, trigger the instability with voltage, and bend the snap-through path to avert electric breakdown. We demonstrate this principle of operation with a commonly used experimental setup—a dielectric membrane mounted on a chamber of air. The behavior of the membrane can be changed dramatically by varying parameters such as the initial pressure in the chamber, the volume of the chamber, and the prestretch of the membrane. We use a computational model to analyze inhomogeneous deformation and map out bifurcation diagrams to guide the experiment. With suitable values of the parameters, we obtain giant voltage-induced expansion of area by 1692%, far beyond the largest value reported in the literature.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Pneumatic Networks for Soft Robotics that Actuate Rapidly
Bobak Mosadegh,Bobak Mosadegh,Panagiotis Polygerinos,Christoph Keplinger,Sophia W Wennstedt,Robert F. Shepherd,Unmukt Gupta,Jongmin Shim,Katia Bertoldi,Conor J. Walsh,Conor J. Walsh,George M. Whitesides,George M. Whitesides +12 more
TL;DR: In this article, a pneumatic actuator can bend from a linear to a quasicircular shape in 50 ms when pressurized at Δ P = 345 kPa.
Journal ArticleDOI
25th Anniversary Article: A Soft Future: From Robots and Sensor Skin to Energy Harvesters
Siegfried Bauer,Simona Bauer-Gogonea,Ingrid Graz,Martin Kaltenbrunner,Martin Kaltenbrunner,Christoph Keplinger,Christoph Keplinger,Reinhard Schwödiauer +7 more
TL;DR: This review discusses soft robots which allow actuation with several degrees of freedom, and shows that different actuation mechanisms lead to similar actuators, capable of complex and smooth movements in 3d space.
Journal ArticleDOI
Fast-moving soft electronic fish
Tiefeng Li,Guorui Li,Yiming Liang,Tingyu Cheng,Dai Jing,Xuxu Yang,Bangyuan Liu,Zedong Zeng,Zhilong Huang,Yingwu Luo,Tao Xie,Wei Yang +11 more
TL;DR: This work is able to advance a soft electronic fish with a fully integrated onboard system for power and remote control, driven solely by a soft electroactive structure made of dielectric elastomer and ionically conductive hydrogel.
Journal ArticleDOI
A survey on dielectric elastomer actuators for soft robots.
TL;DR: The so-called DEAs are introduced emphasizing the key points of working principle, key components and electromechanical modeling approaches, and different DEA-driven soft robots, including wearable/humanoid robots, walking/serpentine robots, flying robots and swimming robots, are reviewed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Amplifying the response of soft actuators by harnessing snap-through instabilities.
TL;DR: This study designs and constructs fluidic actuators in which snap-through instabilities are harnessed to generate large motion, high forces, and fast actuation at constant volume, and opens avenues for the design of the next generation of soft actuators and robots in which small amounts of volume are sufficient to achieve significant ranges of motion.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
High-Speed Electrically Actuated Elastomers with Strain Greater Than 100%
TL;DR: It is shown that prestraining the film further improves the performance of electrical actuators made from films of dielectric elastomers coated on both sides with compliant electrode material.
Journal ArticleDOI
A three-dimensional constitutive model for the large stretch behavior of rubber elastic materials
Ellen M. Arruda,Mary C. Boyce +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, an eight-chain representation of the underlying macromolecular network structure of the rubber and the non-Gaussian behavior of the individual chains in the proposed network is proposed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Multigait soft robot
Robert F. Shepherd,Filip Ilievski,Wonjae Choi,Stephen A. Morin,Adam A. Stokes,Aaron D. Mazzeo,Xin Chen,Michael Wang,George M. Whitesides +8 more
TL;DR: This manuscript describes a unique class of locomotive robot, composed exclusively of soft materials (elastomeric polymers), which is inspired by animals that do not have hard internal skeletons, and illustrates an advantage of soft robotics.
Journal ArticleDOI
A New Constitutive Relation for Rubber
TL;DR: In this paper, a simple, two-constant, constitutive relation, applicable over the entire range of strains, is proposed for rubber networks and behavior in simple extension is derived as an example.
Journal ArticleDOI
Electrostriction of polymer dielectrics with compliant electrodes as a means of actuation
TL;DR: Electrostrictive polymer (EP) dielectric actuators have been shown to produce 5 to 20 times the effective actuation pressure of conventional air-gap electrostatics at the same electric field strength as mentioned in this paper.