Increased actuation rate of electromechanical carbon nanotube actuators using potential pulses with resistance compensation
- 25 June 2003
- journal article
- Published by IOP Publishing in Smart Materials and Structures
- Vol. 12 (4), 549-555
- https://doi.org/10.1088/0964-1726/12/4/306
Abstract
The results of this study demonstrate that resistance compensation can provide significant improvement in the charging rate, and consequent actuation strain rate, for carbon nanotube sheets operated in an organic electrolyte. The strain rate increased with increasing potential pulse amplitude and a more negative potential limit. The amount of strain produced also increased with longer pulse times. The highest strain rate achieved was 0.6% s−1, producing a strain amplitude of 0.3% in 0.5 s. This performance is significantly better than previously reported. The improvements in strain rate are somewhat offset when large negative potential limits are used due to the introduction of faradaic reactions in the electrolyte medium that do not contribute to actuation. Efficiency of operation is, therefore, reduced under such conditions. Some slight differences were observed between the actuator responses for the negative and positive pulses, which are partly explained by the basic mechanism of actuation and partly by instrumental effects.Keywords
This publication has 16 references indexed in Scilit:
- Fast contracting polypyrrole actuatorsSynthetic Metals, 2000
- High-Speed Electrically Actuated Elastomers with Strain Greater Than 100%Science, 2000
- Linear fully dry polymer actuatorsPublished by SPIE-Intl Soc Optical Eng ,1999
- Steerable Microcatheters Actuated by Embedded Conducting Polymer StructuresJournal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, 1996
- Artificial muscles based on conducting polymersBioelectrochemistry and Bioenergetics, 1995
- Mechanism of electromechanical actuation in polypyrroleSynthetic Metals, 1995
- “Artificial muscle”: Electromechanical actuators using polyaniline filmsSynthetic Metals, 1995
- Conducting polymers as artificial muscles: challenges and possibilitiesJournal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, 1993
- Bending bilayer strips built from polyaniline for artificial electrochemical musclesSmart Materials and Structures, 1993
- ELECTRICALLY ACTIVATED MECHANOCHEMICAL DEVICES USING POLYELECTROLYTE GELSChemistry Letters, 1985