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Polymer Testing 75 (2019) 291–297

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Polymer Testing
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/polytest

Test Method

Experimental and theoretical analysis of laterally pre-stretched pure shear T


deformation of dielectric elastomer
Dilshad Ahmad, Karali Patra*
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Patna, Patna, 800013, India

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Recently laterally pre-stretched pure shear deformation is considered as the most compatible and easier way of
Elastomer achieving higher actuation performances of dielectric elastomer actuator due to improvement of its dielectric
Pure shear test strength and pull-in stability. However, an accurate experimental investigation and modelling criteria of di-
Pre-stretch electric elastomer under various lateral pre-stretches up to failure have still not been reported in details. In the
Ogden model
present work, different pre-stretch levels are incorporated in commonly used material, VHB 4910 under pure
Modulus
shear loading at sufficiently slow strain rate to obtain stress-stretch curves up to failure. It has been also es-
Failure stretch
tablished that Ogden model parameters obtained by fitting pure shear test data are more accurate for pre-
stretched pure shear modelling than those obtained from commonly used uniaxial pull test.

1. Introduction 100% and successfully improved the electromechanical instability in


case of equi-biaxial deformation [18]. Pre stretch was also shown to
Dielectric elastomer has become a potential material to be applied provide stability to the dielectric elastomer actuator material by con-
in actuators, sensors and energy harvesting devices because it under- trolling breakdown strength and electrostriction force [11]. Through
goes large deformation when stimulated electrically [1–4]. With new modeling and numerical analysis, it was also revealed that pre-stretch
emerging technologies like robotic eyes [5], micro fluidics [6], artificial could decrease drive voltage for desired bending deformation of di-
muscles [7], tactile displays [8], acoustic transducers [9], pneumatic electric elastomer actuator [19]. Another study showed that pre
valves [10], micro fluidics [6], energy harvesting devices [7], the de- stretching actually induced stretch hardening effect which in turn im-
mand of this material is increasing day by day. The performances of the proved breakdown strength and maximum energy density [20]. Dy-
products involving dielectric elastomer materials are greatly influenced namic behavior due to pre-stretch induced stretch hardening on VHB
by ‘pre-stretch’ i.e. stretching the material prior to its application. This 4910 was also investigated [21]. Recent study also reveals that laterally
is because pre-stretching of dielectric elastomer improves the break pre-stretched actuators under pure shear loading can be used to get
down strength and actuation efficiency of the dielectric elastomer ac- actuation stroke in the range of 1000% for VHB elastomers [22].
tuators [11–14]. More over pre-stretching reduces the electro- There are fundamentally three modes of pre-stretching: uniaxial,
mechanical instability or pull-in instability [12,15]. equi-biaxial and pure shear. For pre-stretching in the most fundamental
With such enormous advantages of pre-stretch, experiments invol- deformation modes i.e. uniaxial mode, force is applied from one di-
ving pre-stretch conditions were performed by many researchers. rection and lateral direction is free to contract. This involves most
Variation of actuation strain with voltage was experimentally and common application areas like wearable multifunction textiles like
theoretically investigated for VHB material in pure shear loading and it smart shirts, life shirts and sensorized sleeves [23]. Application areas
was claimed that actuation strain increased up to 67% with increase in like micro pumps, disk drives, pneumatic valves and loudspeakers [24],
lateral pre-stretch [16]. Lateral pre-stretch was also applied to present a involve equi-biaxial pre-stretching which allows the material to stretch
comprehensive electro-mechanically coupled experimental work on from both directions equally. However, with the emergence of new
VHB 4910 samples. It was established that lateral pre-stretching of technologies like haptic feedback, artificial skin and artificial muscles
samples improved electromechanical response when the tests were [25], the pre-stretched pure shear application areas are on the rise in
carried at 300–400% deformation in longitudinal direction [17]. It was which force is applied from one direction and the lateral direction is
further shown that pre-stretch raised the voltage induced strain up to constrained. This mode of deformation has the advantage of creating

*
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: kpatra@iitp.ac.in (K. Patra).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymertesting.2019.02.030
Received 16 November 2018; Received in revised form 20 February 2019; Accepted 23 February 2019
Available online 28 February 2019
0142-9418/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
D. Ahmad and K. Patra Polymer Testing 75 (2019) 291–297

larger ratio of active area to passive area and more importantly keeping assume to be isochoric and width pre-stretch p is fixed, i.e.,
the actuation strain in one direction which provides more compatibility
for actuators and sensor based applications [21,26,27]. Some re- 1 2 3 =1 (1)
searchers experimentally investigated the mechanical behavior under
where, 2 = p = constant
pure shear loading [28]. conducted pure shear test for VHB 4910 and
True stress induced in the specimen during tensile testing can be
fitted a Gent model with experimental results for higher stretching up to
calculated from the following equation [13]
10. Hodgins et al. [29] used pure shear membrane to study the elec-
trode stiffening feature of dielectric elastomer. Pharr et al. [30] used F× p
pure shear samples to obtain stress-stretch curve in order to study the T = × 1
(wf × ti ) (2)
effect of pre crack in the material.
Very few researchers have experimentally investigated the effect of Where
width pre-stretch or lateral pre-stretch on the mechanical behavior of
dielectric elastomers. Pancheri et al. [31] conducted width pre-stretch F = Force required for stretch the sample.
experiment on natural rubber up to longitudinal stretch of 2.5 for pure wf = Final width which is fixed.
shear sample. The material parameters were obtained from uniaxial and ti = Initial thickness of the sample.
equi-biaxial six parameters Ogden model to validate the results. Qu p = Lateral pre-stretch ratio.
et al. [32] conducted pre-stretched pure shear experiments and con-
ducted rate dependent test with electrical loading simultaneously up to
longitudinal stretch of 5 and four parameter viscoelastic model was 3. Experimental set up
fitted in the experimental results. Kofod [13] applied a four parameters
Ogden model in which the parameters were obtained from uniaxial The most common and straight forward method of fitting experi-
tests and simulated the pre-stretched pure shear stress-stretch curves up mental data to any hyperelastic model in order to obtain the values of
to p = 5 to investigate the electro-mechanical behavior of pre-stret- its parameters is uniaxial pull test because this is the most fundamental
ched pure shear samples. test and easier to perform. However, it is seen that using uniaxial pull
Though it is seen that some researchers have taken into account the test to determine material parameters for understanding the pure shear
effect of lateral pre-stretch on dielectric elastomers under pure shear or equi-biaxial behavior cannot be sufficient and accurate [33]. In the
loading but they used parameters from uniaxial test to model pure shear present work both uniaxial and pure shear experiments are performed
experimental results that could be erroneous as indicated by Rosset in order to obtain parameters for fitting of pre-stretched pure shear
et al. [33]. It was showed that using model parameters coming from experimental results.
uniaxial test to predict equi-biaxial deformation behavior produced
erroneous results [33]. Therefore, an equi-biaxial test setup was de- 3.1. Uniaxial pull test
veloped by them to obtain correct biaxial hyperelastic parameters for
further applications. In the similar line, the present work also devel- Uniaxial pull test is performed in universal testing machine using
oped experimental setup for measurement of stress-stretch under lateral 2.5 kN load cell. For uniaxial test, the width of the rectangular sample is
pre-stretched pure shear test up to the failure of VHB 4910 membrane 6.5 mm and length is 52 mm. Therefore, the width to length ratio is 1:8
to obtain the parameters for hyperelastic Ogden model. The perfor- which is large enough for the specimen to contract in the width di-
mance of four parameters Ogden model using pure shear experimental rection when stretched longitudinally. This test is performed at a very
data is compared with that using uniaxial experimental data. The slow strain rate of 0.0043/s in order to assess equilibrium state or long
Ogden model parameters obtained through pure shear measurement term behavior of VHB 4910 [34]. From Fig. 2, it is seen that the sample
show better prediction accuracy than those obtained using uniaxial test is rectangular in shape initially but as pulling starts the sample is free to
data. The major contribution of this work is that it is the first of its kind contract along width direction.
of work to perform laterally pre-stretched pure shear experiments till
failure of the elastomer membrane. Additionally, we also made an effort
to apply pure shear test data for model fitting of the experimental data 3.2. Pre-stretched pure shear test
for better accuracy.
Pure shear tests at different pre-stretch ratios are also performed in
2. Experimental approaches universal testing machine with the use of a specially designed pure
shear fixture. A sample having width and length of 320 mm and 18 mm,
2.1. Material properties and geometry respectively, is used. Therefore, the width to height ratio is 18 which is
sufficient enough to induce lateral constrain in the specimen. The
The material used for pre-stretched pure shear testing is VHB 4910 specially developed pure shear fixture with the sample which is fitted
which is commercially produced by 3M in roll form. The density of the with 2.5 kN load cell in the UTM is shown in Fig. 3 (a).
material is 960 kg/m3 and recommended operating range is −10 °C to The steps involved in pre-stretching and fixing the elastomer are
90 °C. All the specimens prepared from VHB 4910 are tested at standard clearly shown in Fig. 3(b) where normal pure shear sample is taken first
room temperature of 23 °C. A 2.5 kN load cell is used to measure the and then pre-stretched in the width direction. Next, the pre-stretched
applied load to the sample and Test Xpert-II software is used to control sample is fixed on the pure shear fixture as shown in the figure and
the test environment in Zwick/Roell Z050 model as shown in Fig. 1 (a). extra parts of the specimen from both sides are removed by a scissor.
The coordinate axes are chosen in such a way that 1st direction is When the pre-stretched specimen is cut from both sides the lateral re-
the stretching direction, 2nd direction is the width pre-stretching di- laxation of the specimen takes place which is negligible as compared to
rection and 3rd direction is the thickness direction. The geometry of the its very large width. The advantage of using very large width specimen
pure shear sample shown in Fig. 1(b) is a cuboid structure where is that it remains valid for pure shear deformation even after some re-
thickness of the VHB 4910 is 1 mm and width is 320 mm. The initial laxation from both sides because the width to height ratio will still
length is taken to be 18 mm for all the testing conditions. The width to remain more than 10 to keep the specimen laterally constrained [26].
height ratio is kept approximately 18:1 in order to ensure that there is The pre-stretched specimen is then allowed to stretch at a very slow
sufficient lateral constraint developed in the sample to obtain pure strain rate of 0.0043/s in the longitudinal direction 1 up to failure
shear deformation [3]. The process of tensile testing of the structure is using UTM.

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D. Ahmad and K. Patra Polymer Testing 75 (2019) 291–297

Fig. 1. (a) Complete experimental test set up with UTM (b) Structure and dimensions of pre-stretched pure shear sample used for testing in universal testing machine
(UTM).

the five experiments for p are plotted in one graph to show the var-
iation in error which is very less as shown in Fig. 5 (a). From Fig. 4 (a),
it has been investigated that as pre-stretch increases the force required
at a particular stretch seems to be lesser. This is because of the fact that
as the pre-stretch increases thickness of the material falls markedly
which consequently results into lesser force requirement. Another
reason could be the increase of compliance or reduction of stiffness in
the transverse direction due to lateral pre-stretching as shown by Fig. 5
(b). The initial secant modulus at a particular strain (20% strain) is
shown to be decreasing with increasing p as shown in Table 2. The
variation of secant elastic modulus is clearly shown to be decreasing
with increasing p in the initial stretching ( 1 = 3) region and after that
Fig. 2. Uniaxial pull test diagram in (a) undeformed and (b) deformed state. the secant elastic moduli for all p increase appreciably and gradually
coalescence together. This parabolic behavior of secant moduli with
stretch is in line with the material like VHB 4910 as reported by Jiang
4. Results and discussions
et al. [12].
True stress versus stretch graphs pre-stretched pure shear experi-
4.1. Experimental analysis of pre-stretched pure shear deformation
ments are shown in Fig. 4 (b). From the graphs it can be seen that there
is a sharp initial decrease in the slope of the curve with increasing width
Tensile tests of pure shear samples are conducted for P = 1,2,3 and
pre-stretch and stretch in the elongation direction starts from a value
4 pre-stretched condition. Each test is conducted at least for five times
lesser than 1. This starting stretch value will decrease with increasing
to check the repeatability of the experiment. As the variations of these
width pre-stretch. This experimental results are first kind of pure shear
repeated experiments are very small, one out of these five tests are
mechanical test incorporating lateral pre stretch and the results are in
chosen to represent force-stretch and then subsequently stress-stretch
quite good agreement with earlier proposed simulated results by Kofod
curves for a particular lateral pre-stretch condition as shown in Fig. 4(a)
[13]. Failure stretch values for different pre-stretch conditions are also
and Fig. 4(b). To check the accuracy of the experiments, the coefficient
obtained from these graphs and reported in Table 2. It is observed that
of variations (%) of all the repeated experiments at a particular con-
failure stretch keeps on decreasing with increasing p . For p = 1, the
dition are reported in Table 1 as illustrated in earlier literature [35]. All
failure stretch is about 9.14 while it decreases to 7.22, 5.78 and 4.95 for

Fig. 3. (a) Specially developed pure shear set up to conduct pre-stretched pure shear test in Universal Testing Machine (UTM) at a very slow strain rate of 0.0043/s
(b) Step wise method to fix the pre-stretched sample on specially developed pure shear fixture (i) Pristine specimen (ii) Specimen is laterally pre-stretched up to
p = w/wo (iii) Fixing of pre-stretched sample on specially designed pure shear fixture (iv) Elongation of pre-stretched sample in loading direction 1.

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D. Ahmad and K. Patra Polymer Testing 75 (2019) 291–297

Fig. 4. (a) Force versus stretch diagram for P = 1,2,3,4 (b) Experimental True stress versus stretch diagram compared with Kofod (violet dashed line) simulated
results for P = 1,2,3,4 .

Table 1
Coefficient of variations of true stress for all five repeated experiments for p = 2.

Stretch Exp 1 Exp 2 Exp 3 Exp 4 Exp 5 Standard Deviation Mean Coefficient of Variance (COV) COV (%)

0.707 0.0003 0.0004 0.0004 0.0003 0.0003 5.22E-05 0.0003 0.1476 14.76
0.81 0.0137 0.0153 0.017 0.015 0.013 0.0015 0.0148 0.1045 10.46
0.9 0.0281 0.0288 0.0302 0.0245 0.025 0.0025 0.0273 0.0904 9.04
1 0.0433 0.0431 0.0434 0.0337 0.037 0.0045 0.0401 0.1120 11.20
2 0.159 0.153 0.146 0.116 0.126 0.0183 0.14 0.1306 13.06
3 0.28 0.278 0.27 0.224 0.228 0.0276 0.256 0.1081 10.81
4 0.462 0.398 0.444 0.385 0.368 0.0399 0.4114 0.0971 9.71
5 0.651 0.692 0.696 0.623 0.561 0.0556 0.6446 0.0863 8.63
6 1.02 1.044 1.072 0.982 0.825 0.0972 0.9886 0.0983 9.83
7 1.58 1.65 1.52 1.55 1.62 0.05225 1.584 0.0329 3.30

Fig. 5. (a) Initial secant elastic modulus with different lateral pre-stretch representing decrease in modulus with lateral pre-stretch (b) figure showing repeatability of
experiments.

Table 2 4.2. Modeling of the pre-stretch pure shear deformation


Variation of secant modulus and failure stretch with pre-stretch.
Secant Modulus (kPa) at 20% Strain
A number of researchers had already discussed and compared dif-
p Failure Stretch ( f )
ferent hyperelastic models for fitting large deformation of rubber like
1 145 9.14 materials [36–38]. Steinmann et al. [36] elaborately derived the tan-
2 138 7.22 gent operators for a selection of both phenomenological and micro-
3 132 5.78 mechanical models which were also validated by the classical Treloar
4 108 4.95
data on vulcanized rubber. Hossain and Steinmann [37] proposed the
extended tube model to be the best fitted with the Treolar's data of
natural rubber. Marckmann & Verron [38] analysed twenty different
p = 2, 3 and 4, respectively. This is because of the reason that in-
creasing pre-stretch decreases the available stretch before failure as the hyperelastic models and concluded that the best model was the ex-
elongation of polymer chain is limited. tended-tube model which best fitted with Treolar's data because it had
only four parameters and its derivation was physically motivated. They

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D. Ahmad and K. Patra Polymer Testing 75 (2019) 291–297

Fig. 6. (a) Uniaxial and (b) Pure Shear experimental fitting with, 1 term Ogden and 2 terms Ogden model fitting at 0.0043/s strain rate. Note that both the axes are
logarithmic.

Table 3 Ogden models to verify the pre-stretched pure shear experimental data.
Parameters and normalized root mean square error obtained after fitting uni- Least square curve fitting algorithm ‘lsqcurvefit’ in MATLAB was used
axial and pure shear experimental data with Gent and Ogden models. to fit the experimental results with Ogden model [36].
Model Fitting Ogden Model Type Parameters NRMSD (%) The Ogden model for obtaining parameters from uniaxial experi-
mental data can be written as [39]
Uniaxial 2 Parameters Ogden 0.01122, 2.252 2.25
N
( µ1 , 1 ) G = 12.6 kPa 1
= µi i 2 i
4 Parameters Ogden 0.04931, 0.0000013, 9.65 TU 1 1
i=1 (3)
( µ1 , µ 2 , 1, 2 ) 1.49, 5.467
G = 36.7 kPa Where,
Pure Shear 2 Parameters Ogden 0.0182, 2.078 8.67
( µ1 , 1 ) G = 19.5 kPa
4 Parameters Ogden 0.1663, 0.00362, 0.13 TU = True stress for uniaxial test in Ogden model.
( µ1 , µ 2 , 1, 2 ) 0.3992, 2.751 µi and i are constants.
G = 38 kPa 1 = Stretch in the 1st direction.

The Ogden model for obtaining parameters from pure shear ex-
perimental data can be written as [39].
N

S = µi ( 1
i
1
i
)
i=1 (4)
The Ogden model used to fit in the lateral pre stretched experi-
mental data can be written as [13].
N

TS = µp ( 1
i
1
i
p
i
)
i=1 (5)
Shear modulus from Ogden model is
N
1
G= µi i
2 i=1 (6)
where,

= True stress for pure shear test in Ogden model.


Fig. 7. Pre-stretched pure shear experimental data (red line) and simulated TS

plots of four parameters Ogden models using parameters from uniaxial ex- p = Width pre-stretch of pure shear sample.
perimental results (black line) and using pure shear experimental results (blue
line) for (a) P = 1 (b) P = 2 (c) P = 3 and (d) P = 4 . The accuracy of different models to fit the experimental data can be
calculated in the form of normalized root mean square deviation per-
centage {NRMSD (%)} given as follows in equation (7).
also concluded that six parameters Ogden model could also be one of
the best fit model but because of six parameters, it required a large n
1
2
1
experimental data base for fitting. NRMSD(%) = ( pred exp) ×100/(ymax ymin)
However, Ogden model has been frequently used for fitting de- n i= 1 (7)
formation of acrylic elastomers because of its advantageous character-
where, pred is the predicted stress value through constitutive models,
istics [13,39]. This model provides accurate representation of elasto-
exp is the experimental stress value, n is the number of data points, ymax
mers like VHB 4910 for very large deformation. Moreover, this model is
and ymin are the maximum and minimum experimental values of stress
simple enough for mathematical analysis. To avoid the computational
respectively.
complexity and large data requirement of a six parameters Ogden
Ogden hyperelastic models with two parameters and four para-
model [38], this work applies two parameters and four parameters
meters are fitted with the experimental data obtained from uniaxial pull

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D. Ahmad and K. Patra Polymer Testing 75 (2019) 291–297

Table 4
NRMSD and corresponding shear modulus for four parameters Ogden model using uniaxial parameters and pure shear parameters.

Pre-stretch ( P) NRMSD (%) between experimental results and when Uniaxial Parameters used NRMSD (%) between experimental and when Pure Shear Parameters used in
in four parameters Ogden Model four parameters Ogden Model

1 7.084 0.14
2 13.93 11.65
3 10.25 8.91
4 12.63 8.90

test till failure at sufficiently slow strain rate of 0.0043/s using equation of the reason that softening effect for the uniaxial pull test is quite
(3) as shown in Fig. 6 (a), The slow strain rate is employed to obtain different from the pure shear test as the latter is constrained laterally
equilibrium stress response of the dielectric elastomer [34,40]. The [33].
curve fitted parameters for different hyper elastic models are shown in Here, it has been established that lateral pre-stretched pure shear
Table 3. For 2 parameters Ogden model, the obtained parameters are experimental results are well fitted with four parameters Ogden model
µ1 = 0.01122 and 1 = 2.252 with normalized root mean square de- using pure shear parameters with minimized error.
viation (NRMSD) of 2.25%. For 4 parameters Ogden model, the four
parameters obtained as µ1 = 0.04931, µ 2 = 0.0000013, 1 = 1.49 and 5. Conclusion
2 = 5.467 with NRMSD of 9.65%. The shear modulus G obtained in
this case is 36.7 kPa. The present work investigated the effects of lateral pre-stretching on
Similarly, pure shear experimental data is fitted with all hyper- the stress-stretch curve of highly nonlinear dielectric material, VHB
elastic models (two parameters Ogden model and four parameters 4910 up to failure. This is the first of its kind of mechanical testing of
Ogden model) as shown in Fig. 6 (b) using equation (4). The parameters lateral pre-stretched pure shear sample till failure. These highly non-
obtained are shown in Table 3. For two parameters model, the para- linear stress-stretch curves are also successfully predicted with four
meters obtained are µ1 = 0.0182 and 1 = 2.078 with NRMSD of parameters Ogden model using parameters obtained from both uniaxial
8.67%. Now if we fit four parameters Ogden model, the four parameters pull test and pure shear test. It is investigated that the four parameters
obtained as µ1 = 0.1663, µ 2 = 0.00362, 1 = 0.3992 and 2 = 2.751 Ogden model for pre-stretched pure shear deformation using para-
with NRMSD of 0.13% which shows very good fitting. The shear meters obtained from pure shear test provide less error as compared to
modulus obtained in this case is G = 38 kPa. that using the parameters obtained from uniaxial test. This is because
Therefore, from Fig. 6 (b), it is clearly shown that four parameters mode of pure shear deformation is quite different from uniaxial mode.
Ogden model is very well fitted with the pure shear experimental data
with a very small NRMSD of 0.13%. In the same way, the four para- Acknowledgement
meters Ogden model fitting with uniaxial data results into NRMSD of
9.65%. Fitting of uniaxial data with 2 and 4 parameters Ogden model as This work has been supported by Department of Science and
shown in Fig. 6 (a) is not coming good because of extreme stretching of Technology, Government of India through project no. INT/SIN/P-03.
the VHB 4910 up to almost 1 = 14 where strain hardening takes place.
Hence, in order to consider the strain hardening region, the Ogden Appendix A. Supplementary data
model fittings (2 and 4 parameters) are not in good agreement in the
initial part up of the stretching as shown in Fig. 6 (a). Therefore, the Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://
fitted model lines are initially deviated from starting point 1 = 1. On doi.org/10.1016/j.polymertesting.2019.02.030.
the other hand, under pure shear loading as shown in Fig. 6 (b), there is
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