On the influence of the compliant electrodes on the mechanical behavior of VHB 4905

The expression electro-active polymers (EAPs) is used to collectively describe polymeric materials that show the ability to undergo large deformations due to the excitation by an electric field. This ability makes them interesting candidates in the development of soft actuators that can be used for example in robotics. When using dielectric elastomers these types of actuators usually consist of a thin film of polymeric material sandwiched between a pair of compliant electrodes. However these electrodes influence the mechanical material response of the polymer. For this reason we demonstrate in this contribution the influence of the compliant electrodes on the viscoelastic material behavior of a polymeric material, i.e. VHB4905 (TM), using both experimental data and a modelling approach.