Mr. William Lai Profile

William Lai

at Iowa State Univ of Science and Technology

SPIE Involvement:

Author

Publications (1)

This will count as one of your downloads.

You will have access to both the presentation and article (if available).

DOWNLOAD NOW

This content is available for download via your institution's subscription. To access this item, please sign in to your personal account.

Email or Username Forgot your username?

Password Forgot your password?

Show

Keep me signed in

No SPIE account? Create an account

Proceedings Article | 4 April 2012 Paper

Out-of-plane motion of a planar dielectric elastomer actuator with distributed stiffeners

William Lai, Ashraf Bastawros, Wei Hong

Proceedings Volume 8340, 834011 (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.917494

KEYWORDS: Actuators, Electrodes, Dielectrics, Dielectric elastomer actuators, Electroactive polymers, Imaging systems, Finite element methods, Optical imaging, Optical tracking, Carbon

Read Abstract +

A new design for a multi-layer dielectric elastomer actuator, reinforced with periodic stiffeners is presented. The resulting actuator enables complex out-of- plane motion without the need of the elastomer membrane prestretch. An in situ optical imaging system is used to capture the complex deformation pattern and track the non-planar displacement and curvature under the applied voltage. The role of the stiffeners periodicity, φ, on the macroscopic actuator response is analyzed numerically utilizing ABAQUS finite element software. A user-material subroutine is developed to represent the elastomer deformation under the applied electric field. It is found that the actuator force-stroke characteristics can be greatly changed by varying φ, while maintaining the same overall actuator stiffness. The numerical results showed a band of localized deformation around the stiffeners. The refinement of the stiffener, φ, increases the total actuated volume within the span of the actuator, and thereby the macroscopic actuator stroke. The stored elastic strain energy within the actuator is also increased. φ might be further refined down to the actuator sheet thickness, wherein the localized deformation bands overlaps. This is the practical limit of the stiffeners spacing to achieve the largest macroscopic actuator stroke. The developed experimental and modeling framework would enable the exploitation and optimization of different actuator designs to achieve a preset load-stroke characteristic.

My Library

You currently do not have any folders to save your paper to! Create a new folder below.

Folder Name

Folder Description

View contact details

UPDATE YOUR PROFILE

Is this your profile? Update it now.

Sign into your SPIE.org account

Don’t have a profile and want one?

Create an account on SPIE.org

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.

ORGANIZATIONAL
Sign in with credentials provided by your organization.

Organizational Username

Organizational Password

Show/Hide Password

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

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.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

;

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available

Members:

Non-members: ADD TO CART

Keywords/Phrases

Search In:

Publication Years