Polymer Materials for Cost-efficient Manufacturing of Electrothermal Actuators

For performance optimization of electrothermal drives this work presents a detailed analysis and comparison of polymer foil materials. Suitable materials are characterized by dynamic mechanical thermal analysis and used for fabrication of electrothermal actuators. A comparison of material analysis, simulation data and characterization of fabricated actuators shows that polyether ether ketone (PEEK) and polyimide (PI) are suitable materials for fabrication of electrothermal actuators with cost-efficient mass-production methods used for fabrication of printed circuit boards (PCB).