Abstract
Dielectric elastomers (DE) are incompressible rubberlike solids whose electrical and structural responses are highly nonlinear and strongly coupled. Thanks to their coupled electromechanical response, intrinsic lightness, easy manufacturability, and low-cost, DEs are perfectly suited for the development of novel solid-state polymeric energy conversion units with capacitive nature and high-voltage operation, which are more resilient, lightweight, integrated, economic, and disposable than traditional generators based on conventional electromagnetic technology. Inflated circular diaphragm dielectric elastomer generators (ICD-DEG) are a special embodiment of polymeric transducer that can be used to convert pneumatic energy into usable electricity. Potential application of ICD-DEG is as power take-off system for wave energy converters (WEC) based on the oscillating water column (OWC) principle. This paper presents a reduced, yet accurate, dynamic model for ICD-DEG that features one kinematic degree of freedom and which accounts for DE visco-elasticity. The model is computationally simple and can be easily integrated into existing wave-to-wire models of OWCs to be used for fast analysis and real-time applications. For demonstration purposes, integration of the considered ICD-DEG model with a lumped-parameter hydrodynamic model of a realistic OWC is also presented along with a simulation case study.
Highlights
Dielectric elastomers (DE) transducers are a promising technology for the development of solid-state actuators, sensors, and generators [1]
The fluido-electro-elastic wave-to-wire model, which has been described in the section Poly-oscillating water column (OWC) Model and subsection Model for Inflated circular diaphragm dielectric elastomer generators (ICD-dielectric elastomer generators (DEG)): Reduced Model, is used here to investigate the influence of design parameters and of variable sea-state conditions on the energy that can be harvested by a poly-OWC equipped with an ICD-DEG power take-off system
The reported results have been obtained via the numerical solution of Eqs. (32), (33), and (36)–(40) in MATLAB SIMULINK; for an OWC with dimensions: a 1⁄4 6 m, b 1⁄4 8 m, c 1⁄4 12 m, and d 1⁄4 7.29 m, and with an ICD-DEG power takeoff featuring e 1⁄4 5 m, q 1⁄4 960 kg Á mÀ3, l1 1⁄4 18 kPa, J1 1⁄4 110, l2 1⁄4 42 kPa, J2 1⁄4 55, 1 1⁄4 400 s, e 1⁄4 4.5 Á 8.8 Á 10À12 F/m, kBD 1⁄4 7, EBD 1⁄4 30 k1.13 MV Á mÀ1 [3], n 1⁄4 5, and ri;Ã 1⁄4 0:5ðriÀ1 þ riÞ
Summary
DE transducers are a promising technology for the development of solid-state actuators, sensors, and generators [1]. Based on the last term of Eq (30) and on the chosen harvesting control law (Fig. 4), the electric power, W, and the energy per cycle, Ucycle, that can be generated by the ICD-DEG are whereas the viscous stretches ki,v are internal variables acting as additional unknowns for which an appropriate constitutive equation needs to be provided.
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