Enhancing the Electro-Mechanical Response of Stacked Dielectric Actuators

Dielectric polymer films subjected to an electric field reduce in thickness and expand in area. A pile up configuration of such films, also known as a stacked dielectric actuator, is capable of exhibiting contractive deformations while subjected to external tensile forces. This work analyzes the capabilities of the stacked actuator according to a new microscopically motivated approach which suggests that the macroscopic response is determined by four microscopic factors-the length of the polymer chains, the local behavior of the monomers, the intensity of the local dipole and the chain-density. With the aim of enhancing the actuators performance, a specific local behavior is assumed and the influence of the remaining three quantities is studied. It is shown that the actuation can be significantly improved with appropriate micro-structural changes. Interestingly, this work demonstrates that these micro-structural alterations depend on the envisaged application.