Modeling of a diaphragm-type viscoelastic dielectric elastomer energy transducer
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O R I G I NA L A RT I C L E
Yanhui Jiang
Modeling of a diaphragm-type viscoelastic dielectric elastomer energy transducer
Received: 13 July 2019 / Accepted: 28 February 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract In this paper, a diaphragm-type dielectric elastomer energy transducer is theoretically and numerically investigated by considering the viscoelastic behaviors of the material. The transducer is designed in the shape of a circular membrane. The buckling mode of the membrane is therefore harnessed to transform energy between its mechanical form and electrical form. It is shown that viscous dissipation has a significant impact on the electromechanical instability (EMI) of the transducer when it works as an actuator. It is found that, during the actuation, a smaller modulus ratio is easier to incur EMI. It is expected that there is a critical modulus ratio, beyond which a steady state can be achieved by circumventing the stress relaxation-induced EMI. When the transducer works as an energy harvester, viscous effect affects the efficiency of the energy harvester significantly. It is discovered that the efficiency is a function of both the modulus ratio of the material and the pressure ratio from the environment. For a fixed pressure ratio, the efficiency initially drops and then turns upward as the modulus ratio increases from 0 to 1. It is also shown that for the material state with a relatively small modulus ratio, the efficiency decreases as the pressure ratio increases. While for the material state with a relatively large modulus ratio, the efficiency rises along with the pressure ratio. Keywords Finite viscoelasticity · Dielectric elastomer · Energy transducer · Finite element method
1 Introduction Dielectric elastomers (DEs) are soft rubber-like materials capable of large deformations induced by an electric field. As a class of electroactive polymers, DEs are well known because of their low cost, light weight, fast speed of response and high efficiency of energy conversion [1–3]. These characteristics signify their extensive applications such as actuators [4], energy harvesters [5] and energy transducers [6]. When a DE membrane, which is sandwiched between two compliant electrodes, is subjected to a voltage through its thickness, it shrinks in its thickness and expands its plane area. In practice, the most commonly used DE materials in laboratory are very high bond (VHB) tapes (e.g., VHBTM 4910 by 3M company), which are viscoelastic [7,8]. During the deformation of a VHB tape, not only do electrical energy and mechanical energy transform into each other but energy dissipation also takes place. In general, the performance of the devices made of DE membranes is intimately connected with the large voltage-induced dissipative deformation, e.g., the stress relaxation phenomena. In this article, a device called the diaphragm-type DE energy transducer [9,10] is investigated by taking the viscous dissipations into account. A diaphragm-type DE energy transducer is designed in th
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