Applied Mechanics Commons^™

Numerical Modeling And Simulation On Deformation And Failure Behaviors Of Polymeric Materials, Heng Feng

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Featured by biocompatibility, high compliance and capacity in sustaining large deformation, dielectric elastomers (DEs) and hydrogels have gained extensive research popularity for their potential applications in the fields of soft robots, biomimetics, tissue engineering, drug delivery, and energy harvesting. The design of such soft and smart material-based devices and structures requires deep understanding and accurate simulation of their constitutive behaviors, which is challenged by their nonlinear material properties due to unique microstructures and multi-physics coupling. Meanwhile, in different application contexts, those structures are also susceptible to different failure modes, imposing further challenges in simulating and predicting their performance. To fulfill …

Effect Of The Nonlinear Material Viscosity On The Performance Of Dielectric Elastomer Transducers, Yuanping Li

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

As a typical type of soft electroactive materials, dielectric elastomers (DEs) are capable of producing large voltage-induced deformation, which makes them desirable materials for a variety of applications in transduction technology, including tunable oscillators, resonators, biomimetics and energy harvesters. The dynamic and energy harvesting performance of such DE-based devices is strongly affected not only by multiple failure modes such as electrical breakdown, electromechanical instability, loss-of-tension and fatigue, but also by their material viscoelasticity. Moreover, as suggested by experiments and theoretical studies, DEs possess nonlinear relaxation processes, which makes modeling of the performance of DE-based devices more challenging.

In this thesis, …

Effect Of Material Viscoelasticity On Frequency Tuning Of Dielectric Elastomer Membrane Resonators, Liyang Tian

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Dielectric elastomers (DEs) capable of large voltage-induced deformation show promise for applications such as resonators and oscillators. However, the dynamic performance of such vibrational devices is not only strongly affected by the nonlinear electromechanical coupling and material hyperelasticity, but also significantly by the material viscoelasticity. The material viscoelasticity of DEs originates from the highly mobile polymer chains that constitute the polymer networks of the DE. Moreover, due to the multiple viscous polymer subnetworks, DEs possess multiple relaxation processes. Therefore, in order to predict the dynamic performance of DE-based devices, a theoretical model that accounts for the multiple relaxation processes is …