Manufacturing of the fully inkjet-printed dielectric elastomer actuator

Manufacturing of the fully inkjet-printed dielectric elastomer actuator

Wu, Yantong (TU Delft Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering)

Hunt, A. (mentor)
Tichem, M. (mentor)
Mastrangeli, Massimo (graduation committee)
Farhadi Machekposhti, D. (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Mechanical Engineering

2022-07-27

This thesis aims to solve the problems and fabricate fully inkjet-printed dielectric elastomer actuators with silver electrodes and a PDMS middle layer. First, a conductive silver electrode is printed on a coated PET substrate, followed by a printing of the dielectric elastomer middle layer to cover the bottom electrode. Then, the top silver layer is printed on the PDMS to achieve the top electrode. The problems intended to be solved in this work include printing the dielectric elastomer middle layer, treating
the PDMS layer, the significant surface cracking, and the non-conductivity of the top electrode. During the fabrication process, different concentrations of PDMS solution are tested printing. Observations on these printed samples are made to validate the most suitable printing solution and printing process/settings. Different surface treatment cycles for the PDMS layer are also adopted to determine the most suitable one, what effect is brought to the PDMS layer surface, and how they influence the top electrode. For the fabrication of the top electrodes, experiments are accomplished and repeated, coming with failures, which will be presented and discussed later. Lastly, displacement and frequency response measurements are essential to check the performance of the DEAs, being critical sections of the thesis.

Dielectric Elastomer Actuator
Silver Electrode
PDMS
Surface Treatment
Inkjet Printing

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a1750ba6-5d74-40a0-be9c-be965f8e0503

2024-07-27

Student theses

master thesis

© 2022 Yantong Wu