Effect of organo-clay on the dielectric relaxation response of silicone rubber

Abstract

Dielectric elastomers are light weight, low-cost, highly deformable and fast response smartmaterials capable of converting electrical energy into mechanical work or vice versa.Silicone rubber is a well-known dielectric elastomer which is used as actuator, and in orderto enhance the efficiency of this smart material, compounding of silicone rubber withvarious fillers can be carried out. The effect of organically modified montmorillonite(OMMT) nano-clay on improvement of dielectric properties, actuation stress andits relaxation response was considered in this study. OMMT was dispersed inroom temperature vulcanized (RTV) silicone rubber, and a composite film wascast. Using an in-house actuation set-up, it was shown that the actuation stressfor a given electric field intensity is higher for composites than that for pristinesilicone rubber. Also, the time-dependent actuation response of the samples wasevaluated, and it was shown that the characteristic relaxation time of the actuationstress for composites is less than for the pristine rubber as a result of OMMTaddition.