Simulation Study About Onset And Prevention Of Wrinkles In Dielectric Elastomer

Wrinkles, as one common phenomenon that occurs together with soft matter membrane such as dielectric elastomer (DE), is one of the most important factors that affect the normal application of DE apparatus. It is well known that the originality of wrinkle is eigenvalue buckling of membrane. First related wrinkle and buckling criterion and theories are reviewed, as well as previous mature numerical method and principles.Then the paper is mainly focused on the FE study about onset and prevention of wrinkles of DE membrane by introducing pretension stress, based on a series of experimental results, the numerical model of DE membrane is established, and then the wrinkles under given displacement load without preload and with certain amount of pretension are investigated. Finally, after comparing results of different work conditions, the critical pretension needed to eliminate wrinkles under different loads is found. The simulation result prove that the pretension has a good restrain effect on wrinkles in DE membrane and thus two new methods to prevent wrinkles are developed:imposing pretension...