Bifurcation of a dielectric elastomer balloon under pressurized inflation and electric actuation

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• 作者：Y.-X. Xie^a ; ^b ; J.-C. Liu^a ; ^b ; Y.B. Fu ; ^a ; ^c ; ^{y.fu@keele.ac.uk" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author}
• 关键词：Dielectric elastomer ; Bifurcation ; Instability ; Spherical balloons ; Nonlinear elasticity
• 刊名：International Journal of Solids and Structures
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：1 January 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：78-79
• 期：Complete
• 页码：182-188
• 全文大小：645 K

文摘

It is previously known that under inflation alone a spherical rubber membrane balloon may bifurcate into a pear shape when the tension in the membrane reaches a maximum, but the existence of such a maximum depends on the material model used: the maximum exists for the Ogden model, but does not exist for the neo-Hookean, Mooney–Rivlin or Gent model. This paper discusses how such a situation is changed when a pressurized dielectric elastomer balloon is subjected to additional electric actuation. A similar bifurcation condition is first deduced and then verified numerically by computing the bifurcated solutions explicitly. It is shown that when the material is an ideal dielectric elastomer, bifurcation into a pear shape is possible for all material models, and similar results are obtained when a typical non-ideal dielectric elastomer is considered. It is further shown that whenever a pear-shaped configuration is possible it has lower total energy than the co-existing spherical configuration.