Modeling of electro–viscoelastic dielectric elastomer: A continuum mechanics approach

Abstract

The present study deals with the rheological behavior modeling of a dielectric elastomeric (DE) material class. The DE materials are commonly used to develop soft actuators and energy harvesters in soft robotics. DE is a class of electroactive polymers that produces large strains with an electrically induced load application. In this article, a micro mechanics-based thermodynamically consistent rheological model is derived to capture the electro–viscoelastic behavior of the DE material class. A multiplicative deformation gradient decomposition into elastic and viscous parts is incorporated to attain a transitional configuration. The decomposition is being used for setting up the constitutive evolution equations for an electro–viscoelastic deformation. The derived rheological model agrees well with existing experimental results. We succeed here to enable the effect of viscosity and electric field on the deformation simultaneously with a micro mechanics-based analytical finding with the least possible material parameters.