Fasolt Bettina, Albuquerque Fabio Beco, Hubertus Jonas, Schultes Günter, Shea Herbert, Seelecke Stefan
Intelligent Material Systems Lab, Center for Mechatronics and Automation Technology, ZeMA gGmbH, DE-66121 Saarbrücken, Germany.
Intelligent Material Systems Lab, Department of Systems Engineering, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Saarland University, DE-66121 Saarbrücken, Germany.
Polymers (Basel). 2023 Oct 12;15(20):4071. doi: 10.3390/polym15204071.
Dielectric Elastomer Actuators (DEAs) enable the realization of energy-efficient and compact actuator systems. DEAs operate at the kilovolt range with typically microampere-level currents and hence minimize thermal losses in comparison to low voltage/high current actuators such as shape memory alloys or solenoids. The main limiting factor for reaching high energy density in high voltage applications is dielectric breakdown. In previous investigations on silicone-based thin films, we reported that not only do environmental conditions and film parameters such as pre-stretch play an important role but that electrode composition also has a significant impact on the breakdown behavior. In this paper, we present a comprehensive study of electrical breakdown on thin silicone films coated with electrodes manufactured by five different methods: screen printing, inkjet printing, pad printing, gold sputtering, and nickel sputtering. For each method, breakdown was studied under environmental conditions ranging from 1 °C to 80 °C and 10% to 90% relative humidity. The effect of different manufacturing methods was analyzed as was the influence of parameters such as solvents, silicone content, and the particle processing method. The breakdown field increases with increasing temperature and decreases with increasing humidity for all electrode types. The stiffer metal electrodes have a higher breakdown field than the carbon-based electrodes, for which particle size also plays a large role.
介电弹性体致动器（DEA）能够实现高效节能且紧凑的致动器系统。DEA在千伏范围内运行，通常电流为微安级，因此与形状记忆合金或螺线管等低电压/高电流致动器相比，热损耗最小。在高压应用中，实现高能量密度的主要限制因素是介电击穿。在之前对硅基薄膜的研究中，我们报告称，不仅环境条件和预拉伸等薄膜参数起着重要作用，而且电极组成对击穿行为也有重大影响。在本文中，我们对用五种不同方法制造的电极涂覆的硅薄膜的电击穿进行了全面研究：丝网印刷、喷墨印刷、移印、金溅射和镍溅射。对于每种方法，在1℃至80℃和10%至90%相对湿度的环境条件下研究击穿情况。分析了不同制造方法的影响以及溶剂、硅含量和颗粒加工方法等参数的影响。对于所有电极类型，击穿场强随温度升高而增加，随湿度增加而降低。刚性金属电极的击穿场强高于碳基电极，对于碳基电极，颗粒尺寸也起着很大作用。
