Uncertain Quasi-static and Nonlinear Dynamic Analysis of Viscoelastic Dielectric Elastomer with Interval Parameters

Abstract

Dielectric elastomers as a soft active material have been widely used in the field of artificial muscle actuator, acoustic actuator, loudspeaker, active control of vibration, soft robots and membrane resonators. Compared with traditional materials, there are many unknown uncertainties in the properties of the DE actuators. In this work, a viscoelastic dynamic model of dielectric elastomer is proposed with considering the uncertainties in material parameters, external mechanical load and voltage. By introducing the interval perturbation method and first-order Taylor series expansion method, the creep analysis, relaxation analysis and dynamic analysis of the dielectric elastomer with interval uncertain parameters are implemented. The effectivity of the proposed interval method is verified by the Monte Carlo simulation. This uncertain prediction method could be used in the design of active control systems with dielectric elastomers as actuators or sensors in the future.