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(Digital Presentation) 3D Printing and Laser for Fabrication and Interface Modification of Origami-Inspired Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

Monday, 30 May 2022: 15:20
West Meeting Room 116 (Vancouver Convention Center)
P. Sundriyal (Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur)
The soft and flexible materials with shape and size adaption characteristics are gaining much attention for many applications, including wearable electronics, biomedical devices, microfluidic systems, tunable optics, soft robotics, and adaptive systems. Despite the several advancements in this area, the automated manufacturing and interface modification of these devices is still a major challenge. Here, we report 3D printing and laser for the rapid and scalable fabrication of dielectric elastomer actuators. The elastomer-based inks of dielectric matrix and electrodes were prepared with desirable rheology to obtain excellent print quality and required mechanical and electrical properties. This process can produce thin and ultrathin layers, porous structures, and interface modification of the device components. The device with printed elastomer patterns exhibited a breakdown strength of 40 V µm-1 at 8 % strain. The finite elemental simulation was also performed to determine the device performance under different strain conditions. The proposed technique is highly beneficial for improving the manufacturing and performance of dielectric elastomer actuators.