Influence of Axial Pre-stretch on Tubular Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs), also known as artificial muscles, are a sub-class of electroactive polymers (EAP). Due to their many qualities, such as high actuation strain, high bandwidth, high energy density, and a flexible body, they have shown great promise in a variety of application areas, including bio-inspired soft robotics, haptics, tunable optics, acoustics, microfluidics, and medical assist devices, among others. In order to further widen the scope of application of DEAs, we investigated the incorporation of pre-stretching and its effects on multilayer three-dimensional DEAs designs. Tubular DEAs are a promising approach for soft and compact cardiac assist devices with fully integrated actuation and sensing capabilities. Axial pre-stretching of the artificial aorta (Tubular DEA) increased its performance by 130%.