Analysis of electromechanical stability on dielectric elastomer actuators under large deformations condition

Dielectric elastomers (DE) are one of the important electroactive polymers used as actuators in adaptive structures due to their outstanding abilities to generate very large deformations while subjected to an external electric filed. In this paper, Mooney-Rivlin elastic strain energy function with two material constants is applied to analyze the electromechanical stability performance of DE. This elastic strain energy couplied with the electric energy incorporating linear permittivity is the main item to construct the free energy of the system. Particular numerical results are also processing for further understanding of DE's typical stability performance. The proposed model offers great help in guiding the design and fabrication of actuators featuring DE.

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