Electromechanical Fatique Testing Device for Dielectric Elastomers under Controllable Environmental Conditions

Dielectric Elastomers (DEs) represent a promising transducer technology, due to their lightweight, high energy-efficiency, and design flexibility. Their electromechanical properties enable a large field of potential applications including actuators, sensors and generators. To establish commercial DE applications, it is of high importance to quantify the long-term performance of DE transducers under electrical and mechanical load. This paper presents a multifunctional testing device, which allows systematic investigations of the DE long-term and fatigue characteristics under controllable and application-oriented environmental conditions. It provides mechanical and electrical excitation modules in order to fatigue the DEs, as well as measurement modules in order to investigate the DE long-term characteristics. The whole fatigue module can be placed in a climate chamber, which enables adjustments in temperature and humidity. Strip-out-of-plane DE actuators are used as test specimens for the demonstration of the fatigue testing device and first measurement results are presented.