Silicone rubber

Résumé

Silicone rubber is an elastomer (rubber-like material) composed of silicone—itself a polymer—containing silicon together with carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Silicone rubbers are widely used in industry, and there are multiple formulations. Silicone rubbers are often one- or two-part polymers, and may contain fillers to improve properties or reduce cost. Silicone rubber is generally non-reactive, stable, and resistant to extreme environments and temperatures from while still maintaining its useful properties. Due to these properties and its ease of manufacturing and shaping, silicone rubber can be found in a wide variety of products, including voltage line insulators; automotive applications; cooking, baking, and food storage products; apparel such as undergarments, sportswear, and footwear; electronics; medical devices and implants; and in home repair and hardware, in products such as silicone sealants. Curing In its uncured state, silicone rubber is a highly a

Source officielle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicone_rubber

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Dielectric elastomer transducers consist of a dielectric elastomer between two compliant electrodes. When the elastic capacitor is electrically charged, the dielectric elastomer elongates until a balance of elastic and electrostatic force is reached. Electrical energy is converted into mechanical work. Contrary, in the generator mode, the capacitor is stretched by an outside mechanical force. The mechanical work is converted into electrical energy due to the change of capacitance. The need of a high voltage power supply is the main obstacle for the elastomer transducer technology in various applications. Siloxane elastomers are the most frequently tested elastomers with excellent mechanical stability, processability and electrically insulating properties. It is well-known that an increase in permittivity of the silicone elastomer would allow a reduction of the driving voltage of the elastic transducer. Hence, manifold research activities have been initiated to enhance the permittivity of siloxane elastomers. In the present work, siloxane elastomers were developed that combined increased permittivity with high mechanical stability and cost-efficient processability of the siloxane materials. The synthesis of polar thiols as the first step of siloxane functionalization was studied. Serious challenges in the synthesis of polar groups that can be integrated by thiol-ene addition as side group of polysiloxanes were found. Therefore, commercially available alkylthiols were selected for the functionalization of siloxane due to their chemical stability. The alkylthiols were grafted onto the polysiloxane by thiol-ene addition and subsequently cross-linked in the well-established organotin-catalyzed condensation reaction. The impact of different types of cross-linker on the electro-mechanical properties of the polar siloxane elastomers was analyzed. A significant improvement in the performance of actuator test devices was demonstrated. In addition, the electromechanical stability of the polar siloxane elastomer was illustrated by 50.000 actuation cycles. However, solvent had to be used in the production process of the siloxane elastomers and the cross-linking reaction time was about two days. Apart from their application in thin film actuators, these polar siloxane elastomers were studied with respect to their performance in dielectric elastomer generators together with siloxane composites. Nanospring carbon nanotubes were blended as high permittivity fillers in siloxanes subsequent to cross-linking. Indeed, improved performances of the high permittivity silicone elastomers were found and a deeper understanding for the design of dielectric elastomers for generator applications was gained. The most significant result of this work was the development of polar siloxane elastomers that could be processed into thin film elastomers without any solvent within a few minutes. Two different synthetic approaches were developed based on low viscosity mixtures of cross-linkable oligo(ethylthioethyl)(methyl)siloxanes and multifunctional thiol cross-linkers. The cross-linking reaction was selectively initiated by UV-induced radical formation. These siloxane elastomers possessed an increased permittivity and showed a high electromechanical stability.

EPFL2019

Chargement

Automated test setup to quantify the lifetime of dielectric elastomer actuators under a wide range of operating conditions

Fabio Beco Albuquerque, Djen Timo Kühnel, Valentin Colin Py, Herbert Shea

We present an automated test setup for the systematic performance and lifetime evaluation of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs). This setup, called the MAPLE setup, performs accelerated aging tests and allows quantifying how material choice, fabrication methods, voltage waveform, and environmental conditions influence DEA lifetime, an important step for commercial use of DEAs. The setup continuously monitors strain and electrode resistance of multiple DEAs under a wide range of environmental conditions (up to 85 degrees C and 85% relative humidity), with automatic breakdown detection to record device lifetime. To illustrate a use case, we investigate the lifetime of DEAs made of two different elastomer materials, comparing fixed polarity (FP) vs. periodically reversing the polarity of the actuation voltage. For DEAs made from a slide-ring material, lifetime improvements around 10x were observed at alternating polarity compared to FP. For DEAs made from silicone rubber, no improvement in lifetime was observed. This indicates that different degradation mechanisms are causing failure in the two materials.

IOP PUBLISHING LTD2021

Chargement

High Permittivity Silicones for Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

Simon Johannes Dünki

Many technical advances of modern society sprout from the creation of specially customized polymer materials exhibiting unique combinations of properties uncharted so far. Amid this plurality of highly versatile materials, the class of electroactive polymers (EAPs) bears the special ability to undergo large shape changes when exposed to electrical stimulation. Such materials offer new perspectives in automation, robotics and medicine. Especially the dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) technology is considered as highly promising among EAPs due to the simple working principle and actuation characteristics similar to mammalian muscles. Despite great research efforts and remarkable progress in regard to materials and devices, the commercial breakthrough of the DEA technology is still outstanding. A major obstacle for their application is the high driving voltage needed to obtain a reasonable actuation. The development of tailored elastomers that overcome this deficiency is therefore a main research focus in academia and industry. The exceptional elastic and dielectric characteristics of silicones nominate them as an ideal vantage point to start this endeavor. Their low permittivity inherently decreases the actuation performance and should therefore be optimized with all other properties remaining unaffected. In the present work, dipoles were covalently attached to a siloxane backbone in order to increase the permittivity thereof and achieve a material with an enhanced actuation performance at low driving voltages for DEAs. The introduction of the polar groups to the polymer side chains was carried out via thiol-ene chemistry, which enabled a quantitative functionalization of the polymer backbone. Three different polar groups, nitrile, thioether and sulfones, were investigated and the corresponding functionalized polysiloxanes were prepared and characterized. Thorough dielectric, mechanical and electromechanical investigations were conducted on polysiloxane based elastomers with different content of nitrile groups. In addition, first results were obtained with thioethers and sulfones which are also promising candidates to enhance the permittivity of polysiloxanes. Most of the synthesized polysiloxanes show glass transition temperatures well below room temperature, an important prerequisite to ensure elastic properties. Polysiloxanes that carry a butylthioether moiety at every repeat unit doubled the permittivity of the elastomer. With the same amount of the nitrile or sulfone dipoles, a six respectively eight times higher permittivity as compared to regular siloxane is achieved. However, with enhanced dipole content also an increase of the electrical conductivity of the polymer was observed. A simple one-step process to prepare cross-linked polar silicone films was developed using UV light triggered thiol-ene addition. A strong correlation between the dipole content in the material and the resulting actuation strain was found. Finally, a polar silicone elastomer was prepared that showed up to 20.5% lateral strain under a field as low as 10.8 V/um. Compared to commercial silicone this corresponds to an effective voltage reduction by about 70%. Processing such materials in films the thickness of which is below 10 um would result in an actuator that can be driven below 100 V.

EPFL2017

Chargement

High Permittivity Silicones for Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

Simon Johannes Dünki

EPFL2017

EPFL2019