Porte, Elze;
Eristoff, Sophia;
Agrawala, Anjali;
Kramer-Bottiglio, Rebecca;
(2023)
Characterization of Temperature and Humidity Dependence in Soft Elastomer Behavior.
Soft Robot
10.1089/soro.2023.0004.
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Abstract
Soft robots are predicted to operate well in unstructured environments due to their resilience to impacts, embodied intelligence, and potential ability to adapt to uncertain circumstances. Soft robots are of further interest for space and extraterrestrial missions, owing to their lightweight and compressible construction. Most soft robots in the literature to-date are made of elastomer bodies. However, limited data are available on the material characteristics of commonly used elastomers in extreme environments. In this study, we characterize four commonly used elastomers in the soft robotics literature-EcoFlex 00-30, Dragon Skin 10, Smooth-Sil 950, and Sylgard 184-in a temperature range of -40°C to 80°C and humidity range of 5-95% RH. We perform pull-to-failure, stiffness, and stress-relaxation tests. Furthermore, we perform a case study on soft elastomers used in stretchable capacitive sensors to evaluate the implications of the constituent material behavior on component performance. We find that all elastomers show temperature-dependent behavior, with typical stiffening of the material and a lower strain at failure with increasing temperature. The stress-relaxation response to temperature depends on the type of elastomer. Limited material effects are observed in response to different humidity conditions. The mechanical properties of the capacitive sensors are only dependent on temperature, but the measured capacitance shows changes related to both humidity and temperature changes, indicating that component-specific properties need to be considered in tandem with the mechanical design. This study provides essential insights into elastomer behavior for the design and successful operation of soft robots in varied environmental conditions.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Characterization of Temperature and Humidity Dependence in Soft Elastomer Behavior |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1089/soro.2023.0004 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1089/soro.2023.0004 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License [CC-BY] ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | electromechanical test, environmental conditions, sensors, soft robotics, space, tensile test |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Civil, Environ and Geomatic Eng |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10177030 |
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