Under an applied voltage, dielectric elastomers (DEs) produce an actuation strain that is nonlinear, partly because of the material properties. In this study, an experimental characterization is conducted to evaluate how the ambient temperature and pre-stretch affected the actuation performance. For DEs with a pre-stretch of 2 × 2, an increase of temperature from -10° to 80° results in a variation in the actuation strain of more than 1700%. Low pre-stretched DEs are more susceptible to temperature change; while highly pre-stretched DEs are relatively insensitive to temperature, because in this case the energy conversion was dominated by mechanical stretching, rather than thermal conduction, during the actuation.
Lei LiuHualing ChenBo LiJunjie ShengJunshi ZhangChi ZhangYanjie WangDichen Li
将3D打印技术应用于电活性聚合物材料—离子凝胶材料,采用离子凝胶的材料热压工艺所用的溶液配置方法,重点研究了在不同流量、不同扫描速度组合下,离子凝胶芯层与电极层单点成线、线拼成面后特征尺寸分布规律。实验结果表明:挤出流量的和扫描速度影响单点成线的线宽数值大小,进而影响线拼成面的单层质量。在得到单层质量最佳工艺参数及单层层厚参数的基础上,以圆柱环为例,通过多层叠加打印了厚度为0.5 mm的离子凝胶立体结构,给该结构的测点该施加500 m N的压力,该结构上下表面可产生0.35 m V的电压;采用复合打印技术制造出了离子凝胶的三明治结构,将打印出来的离子凝胶试件在3.5 V的直流电压下驱动,该试件末端18 s内可以发生1.5 mm的变形,传感驱动性能测试结果证明离子凝胶三维打印工艺可行,从而为后续该材料的复杂结构制造以及在软体机器人中的应用奠定基础。