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Published February 2016 | Submitted
Journal Article Open

Towards a physics-based multiscale modelling of the electro-mechanical coupling in electro-active polymers

Abstract

Owing to the increasing number of industrial applications of electro-active polymers (EAPs), there is a growing need for electromechanical models which accurately capture their behaviour. To this end, we compare the predicted behaviour of EAPs undergoing homogeneous deformations according to three electromechanical models. The first model is a phenomenological continuum-based model composed of the mechanical Gent model and a linear relationship between the electric field and the polarization. The electrical and the mechanical responses according to the second model are based on the physical structure of the polymer chain network. The third model incorporates a neo-Hookean mechanical response and a physically motivated microstructurally based long-chains model for the electrical behaviour. In the microstructural-motivated models, the integration from the microscopic to the macroscopic levels is accomplished by the micro-sphere technique. Four types of homogeneous boundary conditions are considered and the behaviours determined according to the three models are compared. For the microstructurally motivated models, these analyses are performed and compared with the widely used phenomenological model for the first time. Some of the aspects revealed in this investigation, such as the dependence of the intensity of the polarization field on the deformation, highlight the need for an in-depth investigation of the relationships between the structure and the behaviours of the EAPs at the microscopic level and their overall macroscopic response.

Additional Information

© 2016 The Author(s). Published by the Royal Society. Received: 5 July 2015; Accepted: 25 January 2016; Published 24 February 2016. Authors' contributions: All authors carried out the research and the analysis jointly and N.C. was responsible for the programming. All authors gave final approval for publication. N.C. would like to thank the financial assistance of the Minerva Foundation. Additionally, partial financial support for this work was provided by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrdet) under grant no. 2011-5428 and is gratefully acknowledged by A.M. Finally, N.C. and G.dB. wish to acknowledge the support of the Israel Science Foundation founded by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities (grant no. 1246/11). We have no competing interests.

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