Lifetime investigation of dielectric elastomer stack actuators

The term electroactive polymers (EAP) represents a large class of materials which exhibit an electro-mechanical transduction. We shortly classify dielectric elastomer stack actuators (DESA) in the broad field of electroactive polymers. The scope of this paper relates to our first results on lifetime investigation on DESA. We describe the developed measurement setup, the data which is acquired and the way we finally identify lifetime out of the measurements. In a very rough number, regardless of electrical and mechanical driving conditions, dielectric elastomer stack actuators made of Elastosil P7670 (Wacker) can be driven for more than 320 million cycles. The subsequently arising degradation can be lead back to the interconnection. As this connection can be easily re-established even longer lifetimes are supposable with better interconnections.