Delayed electromechanical instability of a viscoelastic dielectric elastomer balloon
Abstract
When a dielectric elastomer (DE) balloon is subjected to electromechanical loading, instability may happen. In recent experiments, it has been shown that the instability configuration of a DE balloon under electromechanical loading can be very different from that only subjected to mechanical load. It has also been observed in the experiments that the electromechanical instability phenomena of a DE balloon can be highly time-dependent. In this article, we adopt a nonlinear viscoelastic model for the DE membrane to investigate the time-dependent electromechanical instability of a DE balloon. Using the model, we show that under a constant electromechanical loading, a DE balloon may gradually evolve from a convex shape to a non-convex shape with bulging out in the centre, and compressive hoop stress can also gradually develop the balloon, resulting in wrinkles as observed in the experiments. We have further shown that the snap-through instability phenomenon of the DE balloon also greatly depends on the ramping rate of the applied voltage.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2019
- Source ID
- 10.1098/rspa.2019.0316
Entities
People
- Jinsong Leng
- Liwu Liu
- Shengqiang Cai
- Xiongfei Lv
- Yanju Liu
Organizations
- Harbin Institute of Technology
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Office of Naval Research Global
- University of California, San Diego