How does static stretching decrease the dielectric constant of VHB 4910 elastomer?

摘要

Subject to a voltage, dielectric elastomers deform by the effect of Maxwell stress which is depended directly on the dielectric constant of the material. The combination of large strain, soft elastic response and good dielectric properties has established VHB 4910 elastomer as the most used material for dielectric elastomer actuators. However, the effect of stretch on the dielectric constant for this elastomer is much debated topic while controversy results are demonstrated in the literature. The dielectric constant of this material is studied and demonstrated that it decreases slightly or hugely among the stretch but any pertinent response and any physic explications are validated by the scientific community. In this paper, we presented a detail study about dielectric behavior of VHB 4910 elastomer versus a broadband of stretch and temperature. We found that the dielectric constant of this material depends strongly on the stretch following a polynomial law. Among all the explanations of stretch dependence of the dielectric constant of VHB 4910 in the literature: the crystallization, the change of glass transition temperature, the decrease of dipole orientation, the electrostriction effect under stress; and based on our experimental result, we conclude that the decrease of dipole orientation seems the main reason to the drop of dielectric constant of VHB 4910 elastomer versus the stretch. We proposed also an accurate model describing the dielectric constant of this material for a large range of stretch and temperature.