0905 Development of Finite Element Analysis Based on Mixture Theory for Mechano-Electrochemical Coupling Behavior of IPMC
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The Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite (IPMC), a class of materials that can convert electrical energy into mechanical energy, is attracting attention as one of the most promising candidate materials of soft sensors, actuators, catheters and especially artificial muscles due to its safety, quick respondency and the ability of large deformation under low-voltage. Although these abilities of IPMC offer great opportunities of its application in the biomedical, biomimetical and microelectromechanical fields, for the purpose of making it fit for practical use, the IPMC structural system has to be constructed and optimized to provide higher output power and perform complicated behavior. In this work, a finite element approach based on the mixture theory is developed to simulate the coupling of mechanical-electrochemical behavior in IPMC. The deformation, stress and strain distribution are investigated by taking the effect of diffusion of ions and osmotic phenomenon into account.
