Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Sensors
- PDF / 952,231 Bytes
- 9 Pages / 612 x 792 pts (letter) Page_size
- 28 Downloads / 262 Views
Polymer Actuators and Sensors
Yoseph Bar-Cohen and Qiming Zhang, Guest Editors Abstract Polymers are highly attractive for their inherent properties of mechanical flexibility, light weight, and easy processing. In addition, some polymers exhibit large property changes in response to electrical stimulation, much beyond what is achievable by inorganic materials. This adds significant benefit to their potential applications. The focus of this issue of MRS Bulletin is on polymers that are electromechanically responsive, which are also known as electroactive polymers (EAPs). These polymers respond to electric field or current with strain and stress, and some of them also exhibit the reverse effect of converting mechanical motion to an electrical signal. There are many types of known polymers that respond electromechanically, and they can be divided according to their activation mechanism into field-activated and ionic EAPs. The articles in this issue cover the key material types used in these two groups, review the mechanisms that drive them, and provide examples of applications and current challenges. Recent advances in the development of these materials have led to improvement in the induced strain and force and the further application of EAPs as actuators for mimicking biologic systems and sensors. As described in this issue, the use of these actuators is enabling exciting applications that would be considered impossible otherwise.
Introduction Electroactive polymers (EAPs) are materials that respond mechanically to electrical stimulation. Their electromechanical response, exhibiting large strain when subjected to electrical stimulation, makes them the human-made actuators that most closely emulate natural muscles. For this ability, EAP materials have earned the name “artificial muscles.”1 There are many polymers that are considered EAPs, and there are several different mechanisms that determine their response to electrical stimulation. Some of the leading types of EAP materials are covered in the six articles included in this special issue of MRS Bulletin. Impressive advances in improving the actuation strain capability of EAPs are attracting the attention of engineers and scientists from many different disciplines. These materials are particularly attractive in biomimetics, since they can be used to mimic the movements of humans, ani-
mals, and insects for making biologically inspired mechanisms.2 Increasingly, engineers are able to develop EAP-actuated mechanisms that were previously imaginable only in science fiction. The electromechanical properties of some EAP materials enable them to serve as both actuators and sensors. When they are stimulated to respond with shape or dimensional changes, they can be used as actuators, while if they exhibit the inverse effect, they can be used as sensors or even power generators. The polymer base of EAP materials allows many attractive properties and characteristics including low weight, fracture tolerance, and pliability. Further, they can be configured into almost any sh
Data Loading...
