Electroactive Polymer “Artificial Muscle” Operable in Ultra-High Hydrostatic Pressure Environment

Transducers for high-power sonars, an important tool for undersea exploration and monitoring, may be required to work in deep water where pressures are higher than several tens of MPa. In contrast with the piezoelectric devices commonly used as high-power sonars for seabed resource exploration, electroactive polymers offer the benefits of high coupling efficiency, low cost, and the ability to form large area skins or other devices. One question about the use of electroactive polymers for sonar has been their ability to withstand the rigors of the deep-sea environment. In a recent experiment, we have verified that the dielectric elastomer type of electroactive polymer can maintain good operational characteristics even in an ultrahigh-pressure environment by showing that the electroactive strain response to an applied voltage was unaffected by externally applied pressures of up to 100 MPa.