A polarisation based approach to model strain dependent electrostatic pressure of dielectric elastomer actuators

A wide-spread lumped parameter model describing the electrostatic pressure is presented by Pelrine et. al. in 1998 [1]. In Pelrine's model, the electrostatic pressure is affected by the relative permittivity of the material, also known as dielectric constant. However, many researchers found that the dielectric constant of DEAs is not constant at all, but decreasing with increasing pre-stretch of the material. In this work, an alternative modelling approach is presented, explaining the stretch dependent actuation pressure. It is shown that this new model fits experimental data found in literature quite well. (© 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)