Polymer gel actuators

It is shown that by selecting appropriate constituents and processing regimes it is possible to produce polymer gels with various, predictable performance characteristics and that such gels have a wide range of possible applications where their use may eliminate the need for complex sensing and actuation systems. As such they provide for mechatronic engineering a technique with significantly different characteristics to the majority of available actuators. In particular, the gels considered are copolymers of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and poly(acrylic acid) (PAA), stimulated either by the direct application of acid/alkali or by electrochemical means. It is examined how such gels may be optimised, in terms of composition, production, stimulation and physical structure, to produce useful actuator performance