Abstract
Elastomer materials are very important due to weak intermolecular forces and very low Young's modulus and have high failure strain. Due to these properties, they are used in a large number of applications especially in pharmaceutical industry and medical / surgical equipment etc. Electrostatic discharge on such material is a potential hazard for the operator who is dealing with elastomers. In the research presented here, a detailed analysis on the elasto-electric analysis of 03x elastomers is analyzed in detail by using Finite Element Method (FEM). A CAD model is generated in accordance with an early research on elasto-electric study of Silicon material. Subsequently FEM based analysis is carried out to study vital electrostatics properties like Surface deformation and surface potential distribution developed on the application of external forces on 03x types of elastomers i.e. Silicon Rubber, Nitrile (NBR) and Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC). The whole study is carried out in COMSOL multi-physics software. Analysis showed that the electric field developed on the surface of the elastomer is dependent on the deformation on non-linear nature and depends upon the material properties. FEM based results show that Silicon Rubber develops maximum deformation and electric potential of three chosen materials up to 50mm and 3150V respectively. Based on the conducted analysis, Silicon Rubber is widely recommended for its utilization in Pharmaceutical applications requiring electrostatics.
Highlights
Elastomer materials are the polymer that have both viscosity and elasticity
The results show that the more the deflection, the higher will be the electric potential, In case of Silicon Rubber, from Fig. 6 and Fig. 7, it can be seen that the maximum deformation is about 50mm, whereas the maximum electric potential developed is 3100V
The results are within 2% of the results obtained in [27] and this similarity in the results proves the validity of the mechanism used for Finite Element Method (FEM) analysis used in this research (Slight variation of deformation in the results from [27] is due to unavailability of width and height data of Silicon Rubber specimen)
Summary
Elastomer materials are the polymer that have both viscosity and elasticity. These materials have very weak intermolecular forces with very low Young's modulus and high failure strain. Elastomer materials have a large number of applications They are used in fabrication of soft fluidic robots through various morphologies composed of Silicon rubber [1]. Another application lies in its usage as transducers through thin elastomeric membranes with electronic insulated methodology [2]. Metal forming processes uses elastomers as a flexible tool and they are used in various processes include in shaping / casting the metal for its formation to a desired shape. Another application lies in the use of elastomers as thermoplastic [5]. Thermo-plastic elastomers have various properties like light weight, high strength, process ability and low cost which makes them usable for various applications i.e. from household to aeronautics sectors
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