| Materials Research Society Symposium Proceedings Volume 600, Electroactive Polymers (EAP) Symposium Held in Boston, Massachusetts on November 29-December 1, 1999 (1998) | |||||||||||
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| For many years, electroactive ceramic, magnetostrictive material and shape memory alloys have been the primary source of actuation materials for manipulation and mobility systems. Electroactive polymers (EAP) received relatively little attention due to their limited capability. In recent years, effective EAP materials have emerged changing the paradigm of these materials' capability and potential. Their main attractive characteristic is the operation similarity to biological muscles where under electrical excitation a large displacement is induced. The potential to operate biologically inspired mechanisms using EAP as artificial muscles and organs is offering exciting applications that are currently considered science fiction. This MRS symposium, "Electroactive Polymers," held November 29-December 1 at the 1999 MRS Fall Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, was initiated for the first time this year in an effort to promote technical exchange of EAP research and development as well as provide a forum for progress reports. The symposium has the input from the international mix in participation. Eminent EAP researchers from the U.S.A., Japan, and Europe presented Invited Papers covering the cutting edge of their material state of the art capabilities and limitations. Generally, two groups of materials were covered: Dry including electrostrictive, electrostatic, piezoelectric, and ferroelectric; as well as Wet including IPMC, nanotubes, conductive polymers, gels, etc. While overall the dry types require high voltage for their operation, they provide larger mechanical energy density and they can hold a displacement under a DC voltage, and some of the DRY EAP are capable of operating to high frequencies (>10 kHz). On the other hand, the WET EAP are superior in requiring low actuation voltage (approx. a few volts) with high strain generation capabilities, but are sensitive to drying, and some have difficulties holding a displacement under DC activation. | |||||||||||
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