Potential of thermally expandable polymers with embedded skeletons for actuator applications

Conference paper (2008)
Department
Department of Precision and Microsystems Engineering (Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2008 Lau, G.-K., Goosen, J.F.L., Duc, T.C., Van Keulen, F.
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Published Date

06-05-2008

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Source:

Proceedings of SPIE, 2008 vol. 6927

Faculty

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

Department

Department of Precision and Microsystems Engineering

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of a new type of thermal micro-actuators using thermally expandable polymers with embedded skeletons. Embedding a stiff skeleton enhances the actuation capability of the thermally expandable polymer. Consequently, the skeleton-reinforced polymers feature a large maximum actuation stress (often above 100 MPa) and a moderate maximum strain (often above 1%) besides a faster thermal response. In addition, the present composite design has room for performance improvement by tuning the volume fraction of the polymeric expander or selecting a proper expander material. Furthermore, the micro-actuators can be taylored for different motion characteristics, using various skeleton shapes. Finally, we discussed the possible applications using the present actuators.

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