Study on the electrical breakdown of dielectric elastomer actuator materials

Dielectric Elastomer Actuators (DEAs) are a type of deformable capacitor that undergo large voltage-induced deformations. Due to the Maxwell stress (εE2 for DEAs, where ε is the permittivity and E is the electric field), the layer of the dielectric elastomer film reduces in thickness and expands in area (Pelrine, 2000) (Carpi et al., 2010). However, the performance of DEAs is currently limited by their electrical breakdown behavior (Kollosche & Kofod, 2010) (Zhao & Suo, 2009).