Performance of tubular actuators constructed with dielectric elastomer materials

• Published in: Chinese physics B Vol. 34; no. 7; pp. 74501 - 74508
• Main Author: Zhang, Chengguang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chinese Physical Society and IOP Publishing Ltd 01.07.2025
• Subjects: dielectric elastomer (DE); series; soft robot; tubular actuator
• ISSN: 1674-1056; 2058-3834
• DOI: 10.1088/1674-1056/add007

Soft underwater swimming robots driven by smart materials show unique advantages in ocean exploration, such as low noise, high flexibility and good environmental interaction ability. The dielectric elastomer (DE), as a new kind of soft intelligent material, has the characteristics of a low elastic modulus, large deformation range, high energy density and fast response speed. DE actuator (DEA) drive systems use the deformation characteristics of dielectric materials to drive the mechanical system, which has become a research hotspot in the field of soft robots. In this paper, a tubular actuator based on DEs is designed and its performance is studied. Firstly, the structure and driving process of a DEA are described, and a tubular DEA is designed. Studying the elongation ratio of the DEA pre-stretching shows that when the axial elongation ratio is 3 times and the circumferential elongation ratio is 4 times, the maximum deformation effect can be obtained under voltage excitation. At a voltage of 6.0 kV, a single pipe section DEA achieves a bending angle of 25.9° and a driving force of 73.8 mN. Secondly, the effect of the DEA series on the bending angle and response characteristics is studied. The experimental results show that the maximum bending angle of the three joint actuators in series can reach 59.3° under 6.0 kV voltage, which significantly improves the overall bending performance. In addition, the truncation frequency of the drive module after the series is increased to 0.62 Hz, showing better frequency response capability. The excellent performance of the pipe joint actuator in its bending angle, response characteristic and driving force is verified.