Dielectric Electro Active Polymer's material modeling, testing and verification

This paper will entail the work of modeling, testing and verification of the Dielectric Electro Active Polymers (DEAP's) material. Whereby mathematical model will be derived to describe the statics and the dynamics of the DEAP's sheet, parameters of the models are determined using experimental/simulation results which will be used to verify and determine the precision of the derived dynamic model. The testing for finding the material properties is requested before doing the dynamic analysis, however this will not be addressed thoroughly in this paper. Both material characterization and dynamic analysis tests are performed using the developed testing rig specially designed for this purpose. The results of this study highlight the dependency of the material dynamics on the mechanical fixture of the material as well as the material creep properties, whereby the range of operation can be reduced to lower frequencies or expanded to higher frequencies when the mechanical fixture is designed for a certain application. The test results for the material shows an offset error between 0–20 Hz mainly because of the material creep but the error diverge after this range stimulated when exceeding the natural frequency of the system which lead to non stable state effecting the controllability of the actuated material, the offset error due to the creep is found to be eliminated using faster discharging circuits.