Fine tuning the electro-mechanical response of dielectric elastomers
Abstract
We propose a protocol to model accurately the electromechanical behavior of dielectric elastomer membranes using experimental data of stress-stretch and voltage-stretch tests. We show how the relationship between electric displacement and electric field can be established in a rational manner from this data. Our approach demonstrates that the ideal dielectric model, prescribing linearity in the purely electric constitutive equation, is quite accurate at low-to-moderate values of the electric field and that, in this range, the dielectric permittivity constant of the material can be deduced from stress-stretch and voltage-stretch data. Beyond the linearity range, more refined couplings are required, possibly including a non-additive decomposition of the electro-elastic energy. We also highlight that the presence of vertical asymptotes in voltage-stretch data, often observed in the experiments just prior to failure, should not be associated with strain stiffening effects, but instead with the rapid development of electrical breakdown.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1810.03206,
title = {Fine tuning the electro-mechanical response of dielectric elastomers},
author = {Giuseppe Zurlo and Michel Destrade and Tongqing Lu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.03206},
year = {2018}
}