Analysis of safe and failure mode regimes of dielectric elastomer actuators

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are promising for bionic and robotic applications. Reliability requirements in such applications necessitate better knowledge of the safe operation regimes and possible failure modes of DEAs. Elastomers consist of a network of entangled and cross-linked polymer chains, able to sustain spatially varying stress and strain fields, accompanied by stored elastic energy. Here we introduce a rigorous thermodynamic description of DEAs, based on a statistical mechanical model to gain insight for material development and optimization. We investigate multistability effects in the phase diagrams of elastomer actuators and combine our model with capacitive extensometry experiments.