Processing of dielectric laminate actuator based on high precision dispenser and ink jet

Abstract

Dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) is one of the promising artificial muscles through light weight, high energy density and capability of large actuation stresses and strains. It is well known that a force generated by DEAs is dominated by the Maxwell equation. In other word, there are three ways, thinning, multi-layering and increasing electric permittivity to increase the force generated by DEAs. Even the mechanism is really simple, a difficulty of fabrication prevents many researchers from developing high performance DEAs. In this work, multi layered DEAs with thin lamina are semi automatically fabricated by using air pulse type dispenser. The dispenser is suitable for drawing an elaborate pattern of several type solutions, including organic and water solvent. The most relevant parameter sets of viscosity, depositing pressure, pitch, nozzle scanning speed and number of over coating for depositing CNT electrode solutions and dielectric elastomer solutions are experimentally investigated. In this paper, A fabricated DEA’s performances, i.e. bending displacements and blocking forces are measured and compared with the prediction by an elastic prediction model.