• Cottinet, Minh Quyen Le
• Capsal, Jean-Fabien
• Cottinet, Pierre-Jean
• Audigier, David
• Lesenne, Colin

Abstract

Electroactive polymers (EAPs) have recently showed promising potential in various applications especially for electromechanical conversion such as low-frequency actuation, for instance micropumps or long stroke actuators. These polymers reach large strain response to an electric field, making them good candidates as low frequency active actuators. According to electrostrictive figure of merits, Fluorinated terpolymer P(VDF-TrFE-CFE/CTFE), which has been investigated in this study, is considered as a semicrystalline polymer possessing the highest level of conversion from electrical to mechanical energy thanks to its excellent dielectric permittivity (εr ~ 50) and high mechanical modulus (~ 200 MPa). However, significant electrical field should be required (E > 100V/µm) to obtain high strain level (> 2%). An organic modification of the terpolymer enables an important increase of the electrostrictive strain under low applied electric field as well an increase of the mechanical energy compared to the neat polymer. Indeed, this simple blending allows to benefit the exceptional properties of the terpolymer at an electric field of 5.5 times lower than the one of the pure terpolymer. In addition, the proposed modification has a reduced effect on the dielectric strength of the EAP with respect to conventional inorganic/organic composites. Furthermore, the process is relatively cheap, industrially used and could potentially break a technological lock as the performance recorded at low electric field are greater than any conventional electroactive polymer. New results of the IEC Pathfinder LiveMirror project (FEM simulations and proof of concept) will be presented as an example of application of this new polymer blend.

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• simulation
• strength
• composite
• polymer blend
• dielectric strength
• semicrystalline
• ion-exclusion chromatography
• ion-exchange chromatography