Design And Analysis Of Dielectric Elastomer Devices For Fluid Transport And Regulation

With the development of science and technology, a variety of new materials appear in our lives, filling the vacancy on the industrial application. One of the major directions is the applications of soft active material. Soft active material is a kind of soft material which can deform or provide functions in response to a stimulus. Dielectric elastomer (DE) is a typical soft material. It exhibits large deformation (over 100% strain) when subjected to an electric field. DEs possess the merits of high energy density, light mass and quick response, etc. DEs have been primarily used as energy harvesters, actuators, soft robotics and braille display equipment.This dissertation concentrate on the mechanical-electrical property and device design of dielectric elastomer. First, this paper proposes a novel dielectric elastomer peristaltic pump for fluid transport. The conclusion that the pump modules with smaller prestretches can sustain higher pressure and the pump modules with bigger prestretches or smaller aspect ratios are more stable were obtained by the experiments and theoretical analysis. Second, a conception of peristaltic pump system was put forward by combining multiple peristaltic pump together. And we successes to combine two peristaltic pump together. At last, this paper proposes a dielectric elastomer governor which can regulate the wettability of soft materials.