Optimization of large-scale programmable electrothermal actuators for morphing structure applications (Conference Presentation)

Electrothermal actuator (ETA) is an area of smart and active materials that is being heavily researched to utilize their large strain capabilities. Traditionally, these actuators are fabricated by coating a polymeric soft elastomer onto a layer of conductive fillers such as buckypaper. This paper explores various factors that can influence the actuation performance including, but not limited to, electrical conductivity, sample thickness, addition of insulation layers, and spatially varying conductance zones. While conventionally, small and thin film-like ETA structures with uniform heating distributions are used, this paper proposes scalable ETAs by fabricating larger ETAs with spatially varying conductance zones.