Experimental characterization and modeling of circular actuators made of interpenetrating polymer network–reinforced acrylic elastomer

Interpenetrating polymer network–reinforced acrylic elastomers used for dielectric elastomer actuators are made by introducing a curable and cross-linkable liquid additive into a highly prestretched acrylic elastomer membrane. After curing the additive, force equilibrium between the polymeric networks preserves part of the prestretch, after the external forces are removed. This leads to a material system with promising properties for applications as dielectric elastomer transducers. This work presents an experimental electromechanical characterization of circular actuators made of interpenetrating polymer network–reinforced acrylic elastomers. The relative dielectric permittivity and passive mechanical response of interpenetrating polymer network membranes with different material compositions were characterized. Circular actuators were tested leading to 70 measured responses of 8 interpenetrating polymer network membranes at different voltage levels. The active deformation at a given voltage was found to increase with the amount of secondary network. This effect is mainly attributed to the decreasing membrane thickness. The actuation performance and variability of the active response can be evaluated based on these observations. Furthermore, the present data can be used to develop and validate models of interpenetrating polymer network actuators. All experiments were compared with corresponding finite element simulations using membrane-specific model equations.