Fatigue life prediction of electroactive polymer strain sensor

Abstract

Electroactive polymers strain sensors bear a great potentiality in the area of soft robotics, wearable devices, and fitness industries. A small initial defect present in such sensor may grow to a critical size during contraction and relaxation cycles leading to mechanical failure, therefore, prediction of fatigue life is inevitable. The crack growth approach is one of the amicable ways to estimate the fatigue life considering parameters like tear energy, crack geometry, and power law. In this work, crack growth approach based on power law is being proposed to predict fatigue life utilizing conducting and stretchable freestanding films consisted of SEBS rubber and dodecyl benzenesulfonic acid (DBSA) doped polyaniline composite. Utilizing this crack growth model for the prediction of fatigue life exhibited that such films can sustain more than a million cycles even at a large value of deformation.