Thanh-Giang La

Very high dielectric strength for dielectric elastomer actuators in liquid dielectric immersion

This letter reported that a dielectric elastomer actuator (3M VHB), which is immersed in a liquid dielectric bath, is enhanced tremendously in dielectric strength up to 800 MV/m, as compared to 450 MV/m for the actuator operated in air. The bath consists of silicone oil (Dow Corning Fluid 200 50cSt), which is 6.5 times more thermally conductive than air, and it is found able to maintain the actuator at a stable temperature. As a result, the oil-immersed dielectric elastomer actuator is prevented from local thermal runaway, which causes loss of electrical insulation, and consequently avoids the damage by electromechanical instability.

Inhibiting electro-thermal breakdown of acrylic dielectric elastomer actuators by dielectric gel coating

Electrical breakdown of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) is very localized; a spark and a pinhole (puncture) in dielectric ends up with short-circuit. This letter shows that prevention of electrothermal breakdown helps defer failure of DEAs even with conductive-grease electrodes. Dielectric gel encapsulation or coating (Dow Corning 3-4170) helps protect acrylic elastomer (VHB 4905), making it thermally more stable and delaying its thermal oxidation (burn) from 218 °C to 300 °C. Dielectric-gel-coated acrylic DEAs can withstand higher local leak-induced heating and thus achieve higher dielectric strengths than non-coated DEAs do.

Large axial actuation of pre-stretched tubular dielectric elastomer and use of oil encapsulation to enhance dielectric breakdown strength

Rolled dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are subjected to necking and non-uniform deformation upon pre-stress relaxation. Though rolled up from flat DEAs, they performed much poorer than the flat ones. Their electrically induced axial strains were previously reported as not more than 37.3%, while the flat ones produced greater than 100% strain. Often, the rolled DEAs succumb to premature breakdown before they can realize the full actuation potential like the flat ones do. This study shows that oil encapsulation, together with large hoop pre-stretch, helps single-wound rolled DEAs, which are also known as tubular DEAs, suppress premature breakdown. Consequently, the oil-encapsulated tubular DEAs can sustain higher electric fields, and thus produce larger isotonic strain and higher isometric stress change. Under isotonic testing, they sustained very high electric fields of up to 712.7 MV m−1, which is approximately 50% higher than those of the dry tubular DEAs. They produced up to 55.4% axial isotonic strain despite axially stiffening by the passive oil capsules. In addition, due to the use of large hoop pre-stretch, even the dry tubular DEAs without oil encapsulation achieved a very large axial strain of up to 84.2% compared to previous works. Under isometric testing, the oil-encapsulated tubular DEA with enhanced breakdown strength produced an axial stress change of up to nearly 0.6 MPa, which is 114% higher than that produced by the dry ones. In conclusion, the oil encapsulation and large pre-stretch help realize fuller actuation potential of tubular dielectric elastomer, which is subjected to initially non-uniform deformation.

Muscle-like high-stress dielectric elastomer actuators with oil capsules

Despite being capable of generating large strains, dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are short of strength. Often, they cannot produce enough stress or as much work as that achievable by human elbow muscles. Their maximum actuation capacity is limited by the electrical breakdown of dielectric elastomers. Often, failures of these soft actuators are pre-mature and localized at the weakest spot under high field and high stress. Localized breakdowns, such as electrical arcing, thermal runaway and punctures, could spread to ultimately cause rupture if they were not stopped. This work shows that dielectric oil immersion and self-clearable electrodes nibbed the buds of localized breakdowns from DEAs. Dielectric oil encapsulation in soft-membrane capsules was found to help the DEA sustain an ultra-high electrical breakdown field of , which is 46% higher than the electrical breakdown strength of the dry DEA in air at . Because of the increased apparent dielectric strength, this oil-capsuled DEA realizes a higher maximum isotonic work density of up to , which is 43.8% higher than that realized by the DEA in air. Meanwhile, it produces higher maximum isometric stress of up to 1.05 MPa, which is 75% higher than that produced by the DEA in air. Such improved actuator performances are comparable to those achieved by human flexor muscles, which can exert up to 1.2 MPa during elbow flexion. This muscle-like, high-stress dielectric elastomeric actuation is very promising to drive future human-like robots.

Challenges of using dielectric elastomer actuators to tune liquid lens

Recently, dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) have been adopted to tune liquid membrane lens, just like ciliary muscles do to the lens in human eye. However, it faces some challenges, such as high stress, membrane puncture, high driving voltage requirement, and limited focus distance (not more than 707cm), that limit its practical use. The design problem gets more complex as the liquid lens shares the same elastomeric membrane as the DEA. To address these challenges, we separate DEA from the lens membrane. Instead, a liquid-immersed DEA, which is safe from terminal failure, is used as a diaphragm pump to inflate or deflate the liquid lens by hydraulic pressure. This opens up the possibility that the DEA can be thinned down and stacked up to reduce the driving voltage, independent of the lens membrane thickness. Preliminary study showed that our 8-mm-diameter tunable lens can focus objects in the range of 15cm to 50cm with a small driving voltage of 1.8kV. Further miniaturization of DEA could achieve a driving voltage less than 1kV.

Stronger multilayer acrylic dielectric elastomer actuators with silicone gel coatings

Multilayer dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) perform worst off than single-layer DEAs due to higher susceptibility to electro-thermal breakdown. This paper presents a hot-spot model to predict the electro-thermal breakdown field of DEAs and its dependence on thermal insulation. To inhibit the electrothermal breakdown, silicone gel coating was applied as barrier coating to multilayer acrylic DEA. The gel coating helps suppress the electro-thermally induced puncturing of DEA membrane at the hot spot. As a result, the gel-coated DEAs, in either a single layer or a multilayer stack, can produce 30% more isometric stress change as compared to those none-coated. These gel-coated acrylic DEAs show great potential to make stronger artificial muscles.

High stress actuation by dielectric elastomer with oil capsules

Though capable of generating a large strain, dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) generate only a moderate actuation stress not more than 200kPa, which seriously limits its use as artificial muscles for robotic arm. Enhancement of dielectric strength (greater than 500MV/m) by dielectric oil immersion could possibly enable it a larger force generation. Previously, the immersion was done in an oil bath, which limits portability together with DEAs. In this study, we developed portable capsules to enclose oil over the DEA substrate (VHB 4905). The capsules is made of a thinner soft acrylic membrane and they seals dielectric liquid oil (Dow Corning Fluid 200 50cSt). The DEA substrate is a graphiteclad VHB membrane, which is pre-stretched with pure-shear boundary condition for axial actuation. When activated under isotonic condition, the oil-capsule DEA can sustain a very high dielectric field up to 903 MV/m and does not fail; whereas, the dry DEA breaks down at a lower electric field at 570 MV/m. Furthermore, the oil-capsule DEA can produces higher isometric stress change up to 1.05MPa, which is 70% more than the maximum produced by the dry DEA. This study confirmed that oil capping helps DEA achieve very high dielectric strength and generate more stress change for work.

Very High Breakdown Field Strength for Dielectric Elastomer Actuators Quenched in Dielectric Liquid Bath

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are prone to failure by pull-in instability. However, this work showed that DEAs, which were immersed in a silicone oil bath (Dow Corning Fluid 200 50cSt), can survive the pull-instability and operates beyond the pull-in voltage. Membrane DEAs (VHB 4905), which were pre-stretched bi-axially at 200% strain and immersed in the oil bath, survived a very high eld strength (>800 MV/m) and demonstrated areal strains up to 140%. The dielectric strength, achieved in the immersion, is approximately two times larger than that in the air (450 MV/m). This is achieved because the dielectric liquid bath helps to quench the localized electrical breakdown, which would have discharged sparks and burnt the dielectric lm in the air.

Enhanced dielectric strength and actuation of acrylic elastomer with silicone gel encapsulation

Use of dielectric gel encapsulation is reported to make acrylic elastomer (VHB 4905) electrically stronger. Acrylic dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) with silicone gel encapsulation can sustain an electrical breakdown field of up to 532MV/m, higher than 315MV/m of non-coated ones. Hence, its ultimate areal strain of 228% is larger than 189% of latter. This enhanced dielectric strength and actuation is attributed to the delayed electrothermal breakdown of VHB with silicone gel encapsulant that bars oxygen supply in air.

Large-strain, high-stress tubular dielectric elastomer actuator with high pre-stretch and oil encapsulation

Rolled dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA), which are prepared by rolling up a flat dielectric elastomer , are subjected to non-homogenous deformation and thus does not perform as well as the flat ones. Typically, the rolled ones reported actuation of not more than 37.3% axial strain; whereas the flat one undergoing pure-shear deformation reported much greater actuation . This study shows that oil encapsulation helps the rolled DEA suppress pre-mature breakdown. Under isotonic test, oil-encapsulated tubular DEAs sustain very high electric field of up to 712.0 MV/m, which is 50% higher than that of the dry DEAs. Hence, it can produce up to 50% axial strain while deforming the passive oil capsules. In addition, it produces an isometric stress up to nearly 0.6 MPa, 114% higher than that of the dry one.