Design and Development of EAP-based Bio-Mimetic Actuator

Abstract

Elastomer membrane pre-stretching, electrode painting, and wrapping around a compression spring can be used to make a rolled dielectric elastomer (DE) actuator that can elongate. Constructing and solving differential equations, such as constitutive, geometrical, equilibrium, and boundary conditions, is used to represent the actuator mathematically. The design of a rolled dielectric elastomer actuator is explained, as well as the parametric dependency of the displacement on the thickness of the elastomer layer, voltage, and the number of turns. The rolled construction has been subjected to analytical investigation for a variety of factors. Variation of the normalised thickness with respect to number of film layers, radial and axial stress variation on different layers, Axial displacement of the actuator and Blocking Force required to not allow any displacement for different number of layers of film has been discussed.