Electro-striction effect of polyurethane elastomer (PUE) and its application to actuators

摘要

The polyurethane elastomers (PUEs) withoutsolvent similar to a polymer gels have been found to show theelectro-striction effect. We proposed the application to an actuatorutilizing the electro-striction effect of PUEs. PUEs weresynthesized by prepolymer technique and were polymerized in theform of films by castin method. The actuator is a monomorph typewhich is formed metal electrodes on the both surfaces of PUEfilms by thermal or ion-beam-assisted deposition method. While, itwas tried to operate the actuators under low voltage by inducingC_(60) derivative into PUEs. Both the normal PUE and the PUEdoped fullerenol increased with increasing an applied voltage. Allof samples were bent in the direction of the cathode, and they havepolarity effect. The bends of the PUE films doped fullerenol werelarger than that of the normal PUE films and it became possible tooperate at low voltage. Also, the pincette type actuator couldsmoothly pick up a sponge like a finger.