Coupled electro-chemo-elasticity: Application to modeling the actuation response of ionic polymer–metal composites

We have formulated a large deformation thermodynamically-consistent electro-chemo-elasticity theory for modeling the actuation response of ionic polymer–metal composites. Our theory accounts for the simultaneous evolution of the electric potential, the concentration of the mobile hydrated cations, a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the mechanics and physics of solids 2021-07, Vol.152, p.104394, Article 104394
Main Authors: Narayan, Sooraj, Stewart, Eric M., Anand, Lallit
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Actuation
Biomimetics
Deformation
Elasticity
Electro-chemo-elasticity
Finite-element simulations
Ionic polymer–metal composites
Modelling
Polymer matrix composites
Polymers
Robotics
Simulation
Soft-robotics
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Summary:We have formulated a large deformation thermodynamically-consistent electro-chemo-elasticity theory for modeling the actuation response of ionic polymer–metal composites. Our theory accounts for the simultaneous evolution of the electric potential, the concentration of the mobile hydrated cations, and the deformation of the host ionic polymer matrix. We have numerically implemented our theory in an implicit finite element program. We use this simulation capability to first calibrate the material parameters in the theory for a Nafion-based ionic polymer–metal composite, and then validate our theory by comparing predictions from the theory against other experimental data available in the literature. We also demonstrate the utility of our simulation capability by conducting full three-dimensional simulations of two soft-robotics applications with some geometric complexity: (i) a biomimetic fin, and (ii) a micro-gripper.
ISSN:0022-5096
1873-4782
DOI:10.1016/j.jmps.2021.104394