Electroactive Heterogeneous Polymers: Analysis and Applications to Laminated Composites

A general framework for characterizing the behavior of electroactive heterogeneous media is developed. The governing equations of the coupled electromechanical problem are obtained together with the appropriate boundary and interface continuity conditions. Preliminary calculations for the class of sequentially laminated composites are carried out. These calculations demonstrate that the electromechanical coupling can be improved by considering non-homogeneous electromechanical actuators. In particular, we show that the overall response of a composite actuator can be better than the responses of its constituents. These findings are in agreement with recent experimental work showing that the limitations of these actuators can be overcome by making composites of flexible and high dielectric modulus materials.

Keywords:

• active materials
• electroactive polymers (EAP)
• electronic EAP
• elastic dielectric
• finite elasticity
• composites

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This work was supported by the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation (Grant No. 2004146).