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- Title
High-Speed, Helical and Self-Coiled Dielectric Polymer Actuator.
- Authors
Mersch, Johannes; Koenigsdorff, Markus; Nocke, Andreas; Cherif, Chokri; Gerlach, Gerald
- Abstract
Novel actuator materials are necessary to advance the field of soft robotics. However, since current solutions are limited in terms of strain, strain rate, or robustness, a new actuator type was developed. In its basic configuration, this actuator consisted of four layers and self-coiled into a helix after pre-stretching. The actuator principle was a dielectric polymer actuator. Instead of an elastomer, a thin thermoplastic film, in this case polyethylene, was used as the dielectric and the typically low potential strain was amplified more than 40 times by the helical set-up. In a hot press, the thermoplastic film was joined together with layers of carbon black employed as electrodes and a highly elastic thermoplastic polyurethane film. Once the stack was laser cut into thin strips, they were then stretched over the polyethylene (PE) film's limit of elasticity and released, thus forming a helix. The manufactured prototype showed a maximum strain of 2% while lifting six times its own weight at actuation frequencies of 3 Hz, which is equivalent to a strain rate of 12%/s. This shows the great potential of the newly developed actuator type. Nevertheless, materials, geometry as well as the manufacturing process are still subject to optimization.
- Subjects
ACTUATORS; MANUFACTURING processes; ELECTRIC actuators; DIELECTRICS; STRAIN rate; SOFT robotics; ELASTOMERS
- Publication
Actuators, 2021, Vol 10, Issue 1, p15
- ISSN
2076-0825
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3390/act10010015