Electrical breakdown characteristics of dielectric elastomer under various conditions

Dielectric elastomers have potential as materials for artificial muscle actuators due to their excellent properties such as contractility. To understand the breakdown mechanism, breakdown tests of dielectric elastomers are performed under various experimental conditions. For a given temperature, the breakdown strength with a larger lamination number is less than that with a smaller lamination number. The breakdown strength with the dc pre-stressing field effect shows genial characteristics at 303 or 333 K, but that at 363 K shows inverted characteristics. As the increasing rate slows, the breakdown strength decreases after peaking. These results indicate that the thermal process is responsible for the breakdown.