Numerical research on electro-elastic properties of the macro fiber composite (MFC) actuators

Issue title: Proceedings from the 16th International Symposium on Applied Electromagnetics and Mechanics (ISEM 2013)

Guest editors: Xavier Maldague and Toshiyuki Takagi

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Zhao, Jianhua^a | Man, Xingbo^b | Xue, Xiaomin^b | Sun, Qing^{b; *} | Zhang, Ling^a

Affiliations: [a] State Key Laboratory for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures, School of Aerospace, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China | [b] Department of Civil Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China | Université Laval, Canada | Tohoku University, Japan

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author: Qing Sun, Department of Civil Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710049, China. Tel./Fax: +86 29 8266 5111; E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: The recently developed macro fiber composite (MFC) actuators are widely used in a variety application due to their high performance, flexibility and durability when compared with the prior actuators. This paper aims to model and compute the effective electromechanical properties of MFC actuators using the finite element method (FEM) and verify the accuracy the model through the experimental test. The results indicate that the FEM results are in good agreement with the experimental data. It demonstrates that the finite element (FE) model is effective to predict the electro-elastic properties of MFC when the electric field is applied.

Keywords: Macro fiber composite (MFC), electromechanical properties, finite element method (FEM), peak-to-peak voltage (PPV)

DOI: 10.3233/JAE-141858

Journal: International Journal of Applied Electromagnetics and Mechanics, vol. 45, no. 1-4, pp. 409-415, 2014