(American Institute of Physics, 2012) Huang, Jiangshui; Li, Tiefeng; Foo, Choon Chiang; Zhu, Jian; Clarke, David; Suo, Zhigang
Far greater voltage-actuated deformation is achievable for a dielectric elastomer under equal-biaxial dead load than under rigid constraint usually employed. Areal strains of 488% are demonstrated. The dead load suppresses electric breakdown, enabling the elastomer to survive the snap-through electromechanical instability. The breakdown voltage is found to increase with the voltage ramp rate. A nonlinear model for viscoelastic dielectric elastomers is developed and shown to be consistent with the experimental observations.
