Viscoelastic effects on frequency tuning of a dielectric elastomer membrane resonator

Abstract

As a recent application of dielectric elastomers (DEs), DE resonators have become an alternative to conventional silicon-based resonators used in MEMS and have attracted much interest from the research community. However, most existing modeling works for the DE resonators ignore the intrinsic viscoelastic effect of the material that may strongly influence their dynamic performance. Based on the finite-deformation viscoelasticity theory for dielectrics, this paper theoretically examines the in-plane oscillation of a DE membrane resonator to demonstrate how the material viscoelasticity affects the actuation and frequency tuning processes of the resonator. From the simulation results, it is concluded that not only the applied voltage can change the natural frequency of the resonator, but also the inelastic deformation contributes to frequency tuning. Due to the viscoelasticity of the material, the electrical loading rate influences the actuation process of the DE resonator, while it has little effect on the final steady frequency tuned by the prescribed voltage within the safety range. With the consideration of the typical failure modes of the resonator and the evolution process of the material, the tunable frequency range and the safe range of the applied voltage of the DE membrane resonator with different dimension parameters are determined in this work, which are found to be dependent on the electrical loading rate. This work is expected to provide a better understanding on the frequency tuning of viscoelastic DE membrane resonators and a guideline for the design of DE devices.