Abstract
A self-healing dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) composed with sandwich structure using silicone rubber as an encapsulating thin shell layer and a piece of open-cell silicone foam filled with hydroxyl silicone oil as an interpenetrating core layer was designed and developed. The novel DEA showed an improved actuated out-of-plane displacement of 10.2 mm and an area strain of 52 % at an electric field of 22.7 kV mm−1 without pre-stretching, which was over 6 times higher than that of raw silicone rubber. Moreover, the DEA provided a blocking force of 499.1 Pa when displaced out-of-plane by 3.0 mm and was used to grasp a balloon. In addition, such actuator presented excellent self-healing ability after an electrical breakdown, which is crucial for improving reliability and lifetime of the DEA device. Therefore, the above DEA provides new understanding of the concept of high-performance actuators for promising applications in artificial muscles and soft robots.
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