Appl Phys A (2009) 94: 507–514
DOI 10.1007/s00339-008-4946-8
I N V I T E D PA P E R
Finite element modelling of dielectric elastomer minimum energy
structures
Benjamin O’Brien · Thomas McKay · Emilio Calius ·
Shane Xie · Iain Anderson
Received: 13 August 2008 / Accepted: 13 October 2008 / Published online: 6 November 2008
© Springer-Verlag 2008
Abstract This paper presents an experimentally validated
finite element model suitable for simulating the quasi-static
behaviour of Dielectric Elastomer Minimum Energy Struc-
ture(s) (DEMES). A DEMES consists of a pre-stretched Di-
electric Elastomer Actuator (DEA) adhered to a thin, flex-
ible frame. The tension in the stretched membrane causes
the frame to curl up, and when a voltage is applied, the
frame returns to its initial planar state thus forming a use-
ful bending actuator. The simulation method presented here
incorporates a novel strain energy function suitable for sim-
ulating general DEA actuator elements. When compared
against blocked force data from our previous work, the new
model provides a good fit with an order of magnitude reduc-
tion in computational time. Furthermore, the model accu-
rately matched experimental data on the free displacement
of DEMES formed with non-equibiaxially pre-stretched
VHB4905 membranes driven by 2500 V. Non-equibiaxially
pre-stretching the membranes allowed control of effective
frame stiffness and bending moment, this was exploited by
using the model to optimise stroke at 2500 V in a hypothet-
ical case study. Dielectric constant measurements for non-
equibiaxially stretched VHB4905 are also presented.
B. O’Brien () · T. McKay · I. Anderson
The Auckland Bioengineering Institute, University of Auckland,
Level 6, 70 Symonds Street, Auckland, New Zealand
e-mail: ben.obrien@auckland.ac.nz
Fax: +64-9-3737599
E. Calius
Industrial Research Limited, Brooke House, 24 Balfour Road,
P.O. Box 2225, Auckland 1140, New Zealand
S. Xie
Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering,
The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland Mail
Centre, Auckland 1142, New Zealand
PACS 46.32.+x · 77.65.-j · 83.80.Va
1 Introduction
Introduced in their modern form by Pelrine et al., Dielectric
Elastomer Actuator(s) (DEA) consist of compliant capaci-
tors formed by elastic dielectrics sandwiched between flex-
ible electrodes. When a large electric field is applied across
the dielectric, in-plane charge repulsion and across dielec-
tric charge attraction give rise to expansion and contraction
of the dielectric, respectively (Fig. 1) [1–3]. The electrostatic
energy density Uel of a DEA is given in (1), where ε0 is the
absolute dielectric permittivity, εr is the dielectric constant
or real part of the relative permittivity, and E is the elec-
tric field strength in the membrane. Due to the incompress-
ibility of DEA membranes, dielectric isotropy, and compli-
ance of the electrodes this is often written as an equivalent
Maxwell pressure P max acting in the thickness direction and
given by (2) [4]. DEA have earned the moniker “Artificial
Muscle” due to their excellent general performance char-
acteristics, such as high energy density, large stresses and
strains, kHz bandwidth, light weight, silent operation, high
efficiency, and the ability to operate in sensor and generator
modes [5–9].
ε0 εr E 2
Uel = (1)
2
Pmax = ε0 εr E 2 (2)
Arrays of bending actuators, such as cilia, are ubiquitous in
nature due to their enormous success as systems for manip-
ulation, pumping and locomotion. Until recently there has
been no way to utilise DEA in the form of artificial cilia suit-
able for these tasks. Introduced by Kofod et al., Dielectric
508
Fig. 1 DEA Actuation Principle. From left to right: A DEA consists of
a compliant capacitor. When a high voltage is applied, the capacitor is
charged. Electrostatic repulsion and attraction give rise to elastomeric
expansion
Fig. 2 Stages in the DEMES erection process. From left to right ten-
sion in the membrane causes the frame to curl up
Fig. 3 A DEMES under 2500 V sinusoidal actuation
Elastomer Minimum Energy Structures (DEMES) provide
an elegant solution to this problem. DEMES consist of pre-
stretched dielectric elastomer membranes adhered to flexi-
ble frames [10–12]. The tension in the membrane causes the
frame to bend until the bending energy in the frame is equal
to the strain energy in the DEA and the structure is at equi-
librium (Fig. 2). When the DEA is actuated electrical energy
is added to the system and thus the structure moves (Fig. 3).
DEMES have a number of advantages as bending actu-
ators: They provide lightweight, 3D movement and can be
fabricated from flat sheets of material. They operate with the
membrane in a pre-stretched state, synergistic with the ben-
efits of pre-stretching which has been shown to improve the
dielectric breakdown strength of membrane materials [2].
They are, in general, stronger than bilayer bending actua-
tors, as the membrane acts to bend the frame from a greater
distance, resulting in a stronger bending moment.
Before DEMES can be used as artificial cilia it is desir-
able to create models for use in actuator design and con-
troller optimisation. This incorporates challenges associated
with nonlinear electrostatics, hyper-viscoelastic membrane
behaviour, high aspect ratios, limited axes of symmetry, geo-
metric nonlinearities, and high sensitivity to boundary con-
ditions and quality of fabrication. Due to these issues exper-
imentally intensive manual design of DEMES is problem-
atic, and modelling should thus provide an essential tool in
DEMES design.
Kofod et al. presented a simple analytical model of
DEMES in [12] which is useful for developing an under-
standing of DEMES operation, but of limited use for sim-
ulating real devices. In a previous paper [13], the authors
B. O’Brien et al.
present a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) based approach
which recreated the blocked force produced by a range of
DEMES designs [13]. However, it was unable to accurately
predict free displacement as the Maxwell pressure was sim-
ulated as a global average, rather than locally in the DEA.
The current paper proposes a methodology to improve the
Maxwell pressure simulation in a FE model and thus more
accurately capture both the blocked force and free displace-
ment of DEMES. The results are experimentally validated
and the method is computationally cheaper than the ap-
proach presented in [13].
2 Materials and methods
The DEMES presented here for experimental validation
used VHB 4905 for the membrane as it is a high performing
and readily available DEA material. Nyogel 756G carbon
grease was used for the electrodes, and 100 micron thick
laser-cut PET for frames. Frame geometry is presented in
Fig. 4. The bases were held flat with laser-cut brackets and
the electrodes were addressed with aluminium foil intercon-
nects.
The membranes were pre-stretched to two different non-
equibiaxial stretch states of 2:4 and 3:5, where X:Y refers to
a stretch ratio of X in the x-direction and Y in the y-direction
(Fig. 4). The stretch ratio λ of a material is given by the ratio
of the current length of the material in one direction divided
by its original length (3), where λ is the stretch ratio, l is
the current length, and l0 is the initial length. Six DEMES
in each stretch state were built to help quantify experimental
scatter.
l
λ= (3)
l0
DEMES were powered with an Ultravolt High Power “C”
Series high voltage power pack to 2500 V for blocked force
Fig. 4 DEMES geometry, frame is 100 µm thick
Finite element modelling of dielectric elastomer minimum energy structures
Fig. 5 Calculating the free displacement of the DEMES. A triangle is
formed by the three red markers; from this the actuator angle can be
calculated
and 3000 V for free displacement. Blocked force was de-
termined using a copper cantilever with a laser displace-
ment transducer tracking its tip position. When DEMES
push against the cantilever the small deflections were related
to force through the stiffness of the cantilever [13]. Free
displacement was measured photographically by attaching
a coloured marker to the tip of the DEMES and recording
displacement with National Instruments Labview 7.1. The
voltage was applied in a square wave between zero and an
incrementally increasing value with a period of ten seconds.
Photos were taken just before every voltage change, giv-
ing the DEMES five seconds to settle towards a final po-
sition. Stroke was defined as change in opening angle θ of
the DEMES as depicted in Fig. 5.
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no data in
the literature on the dielectric constant of non-equibiaxial
stretch states in VHB. To successfully simulate the pre-
sented DEMES, this dielectric constant was measured for
several stretch states. Capacitors of known geometry were
formed by pre-stretching VHB and adhering the resultant
membrane to perspex frames. Thin and uniform gold elec-
trodes were then sputter-coated onto the membrane surface.
The capacitance was measured with a Fluke PM6306 pro-
grammable automatic RCL meter and the dielectric permit-
tivity calculated using the standard capacitor equation. Four
samples of each stretch state were used with 1:1 as a ref-
erence and three non-equibiaxial cases of 2:4, 2.5:5.5, and
3:5.
The FEA package ABAQUS was used to simulate
DEMES erection and actuation. Membrane and shell ele-
ments were used to describe the DEA and frame, respec-
tively. Shell elements are used in cases where the thickness
dimension is much smaller than the in-plane dimensions,
allowing for simplified element formulation. Membrane el-
ements are a subset of shell elements with the additional
properties of zero bending stiffness and zero stress in the
thickness direction.
Typically, DEA actuation is simulated by applying a
mechanical Maxwell pressure on either face of the mem-
brane (2); however, this approach does not work with mem-
brane elements as they are designed to simulate a state of
plane stress. To overcome this limitation, the electrostatic
energy density was implemented directly into the Strain En-
ergy Function (SEF) (4), where U is the total strain energy
509
density, AB is the strain energy density due to stretch in the
material, and ES is the electrostatic energy density. This ap-
proach is similar to that taken by Goulborne et al. where
the Cauchy stress was expressed as the sum of the mater-
ial stress and the Maxwell stress in the material [14]. It is
different in that we use an expression for strain energy den-
sity, which is therefore applicable to membrane elements in
ABAQUS,
U = AB + ES (4)
Before discussing the SEF, the following definitions must be
made: In a membrane λ1 and λ2 are the planar stretch direc-
tions, and λ3 is the thickness stretch. VHB can be treated as
incompressible so that (5) holds. The first and second prin-
ciple stretch invariants are given as I¯1 and I¯2 , respectively,
in (6) and (7).
1
λ1 λ2 λ3 = 1, λ23 = (5)
λ21 λ22
I¯1 = λ21 + λ22 + λ23 (6)
1 1 1
I¯2 = 2 + 2 + 2 (7)
λ1 λ2 λ3
The SEF was implemented into ABAQUS using the sub-
routine UHYPER which describes hyperelastic materials
based on the first and second stretch invariants. Voltage was
controlled in the simulation using the subroutine UDFLD,
which is time dependent. UDFLD also provides a mecha-
nism for accessing the thickness of the membrane elements.
Wissler and Mazza’s model of VHB based on the Arruda–
Boyce strain energy and Prony series relaxation functions
was used to describe the material stretch strain energy den-
sity, AB [15, 16]. A scaling factor k0 was applied to the
Arruda–Boyce stiffness coefficient to allow for apparent
over-stiffness after long term relaxation. A k0 value of 0.86
was found empirically to be a good match. Equation (1) was
used to describe the electrostatic energy density ES.
In ABAQUS, the Prony series relaxation function oper-
ates directly on the SEF. For this reason a pre-multiplier ginv
corresponding to the inverse of the Prony series relaxation
ratio G was applied to the electrostatic term. It was difficult
to find the true value of G inside the UHYPER subroutine.
To allow for this a constant value corresponding to the to-
tal long term value of G was used. This limited the model
to quasi-static rates of applied voltage and loads. The SEF
is given in (8), the electrostatic energy variable K is given
in (9), and the Prony series in (10).
5
Ci  ¯i  K
U = AB + ES = μ I − 3i + 2 (8)
2i−2 1 λ3
λ
i=1 m
ε0 εr V 2
K = ginv (9)
2t02
510 B. O’Brien et al.

n −t series which has up to n terms. For implementation into
G=1− gi e τi (10)
UHYPER, a variety of partial derivatives were required from
the model, namely: ∂U/∂ I¯1 , ∂U/∂ I¯2 , ∂ 2 U/∂ I¯12 , ∂ 2 U/∂ I¯22 ,
i=1

In these equations, V is the voltage applied across the mem-
brane in volts, t0 is the material thickness in meters before
pre-stretching, and ε0 and εr are the absolute and relative di-
electric constants, respectively. C1−5 are constants found in
the Arruda–Boyce strain energy function, and λm and μ are
material properties. gi and τi are parameters for the Prony
and ∂ 2 U/∂ I¯1 ∂ I¯2 . This created a challenge because U is de-
pendent on λ3 , and not just on I¯1 and I¯2 . To address this
we rewrote U in terms of I¯1 and I¯2 giving (11) which is
the characteristic equation derived in Appendix. From (11)
the required partial derivatives can be found (12)–(18).

  3   2   
U − AB I¯1 − I¯2 K U − AB I¯1 + I¯1 K 2 U − AB I¯1 − K 3 = 0 (11)
∂U K 2 (AB − U ) ∂AB
= + (12)
¯ ¯ ¯
∂ I1 (3(U − AB) − 2I2 K(U − AB) + I1 K )
2 2 ∂ I¯1
∂U K(U − AB)2
= (13)
∂ I¯2 (3(U − AB)2 − 2I¯2 K(U − AB) + I¯1 K 2 )

∂ 2U ( ∂∂U
I¯1
− ∂AB
∂ I¯1
)2 (2I¯2 K − 6(U − AB)) + 2K 2 ( ∂AB
∂ I¯1
− ∂U
∂ I¯1
) ∂ 2 AB
= + (14)
∂ I¯12 (3(U − AB)2 − 2I¯2 K(U − AB) + I¯1 K 2 ) ∂ I¯12

∂ 2U 4K(U − AB) ∂∂U

I¯2
− (6(U − AB) − 2I¯2 K)( ∂∂U
I¯2
)2
= (15)
∂ I¯22 (3(U − AB)2 − 2I¯2 K(U − AB) + I¯1 K 2 )

∂ 2U 2K(U − AB)( ∂∂UI¯1

− ∂AB
∂ I¯1
) − K 2 ∂∂U
I¯2
− (6(U − AB) − 2I¯2 K) ∂∂U ( ∂U −
I¯2 ∂ I¯1
∂AB
∂ I¯1
)
= (16)
∂ I¯2 ∂ I¯1 (3(U − AB)2 − 2I¯2 K(U − AB) + I¯1 K 2 )
 
∂AB(I¯1 ) 2C2 I¯1 3C3 I¯12 4C4 I¯13 5C5 I¯14
= μ C1 + + + + (17)
∂ I¯1 λ2m λ4m λ6m λ8m
 
∂ 2 AB(I¯1 ) 2C2 6C3 I¯1 12C4 I¯12 20C5 I¯13
=μ + 4 + + (18)
∂ I¯12 λ2m λm λ6m λ8m

The FEA model was defined as shown in Fig. 4 with an
additional cut down its central line of symmetry (Fig. 6). The
membrane was connected to the inside edge of the frame
and the model thus ignored the membrane material bonded
to the frame, which had a negligible influence on bending
stiffness, and assumed a perfect bond.
The membrane was formed with eight node quadrilateral
quadratic reduced integration membrane elements (M3D8R)
and the frame with eight node doubly curved quadratic re-
duced integration thick shell elements (S8R). The membrane
used the UHYPER material law developed in this paper and
the frame used a linear elastic law. The base of the DEMES
was fixed in all degrees of freedom, and the line of symme-
Fig. 6 Model geometry. The
membrane is connected to the
inner surface of the frame with a
perfect bond, and the model is
cut down its line of symmetry
try was fixed in the width direction degree of freedom, and
in all rotational degrees of freedom for the frame.
The initial stress in the membrane was found by instan-
taneously stretching to the required stretch state a square of
material in a separate simulation. The initial stress was then
imported into the DEMES model and the membrane was al-
lowed to relax for 2000 seconds whilst being held flat. Bias
forces were applied to the frame to ensure that it found the
correct equilibrium state. This is important as DEMES are
poly-stable systems and this step is also required in the fab-
rication of the real device. Once the shape was in the region
of the desired equilibrium state the bias forces were released
and the structure was allowed to relax over 2000 seconds
into its final position. At this point a boundary condition at
the tip was applied when blocked force data was desired,
or the tip was left to be free to move if free displacement
data was desired. The UDFLD subroutine in ABAQUS was
used to ramp the voltage from 0 to 2500 or 3000 V over
Finite element modelling of dielectric elastomer minimum energy structures 511
Table 1 Dielectric constant data

Stretch state Average Standard deviation

1:1 4.13 0.11

2:4 4.18 0.15
2.5:5.5 4.1 0.12
3:5 3.76 0.11

Table 2 DEMES equilibrium position, model versus experiment

Stretch state Model angle Experimental

Mean angle Standard deviation
Fig. 7 Blocked force versus voltage for 2:4 DEMES
2:4 75.81 79.01 3.27
3:5 74.17 75.71 2.49

300 seconds and the response of the model was recorded.

Finally, the data was extracted using the standard ABAQUS
post processing tools and exported to Excel for comparison
with experiment.

3 Results

The measured VHB dielectric constants are presented in Ta-

ble 1. The 2:4 and 2.5:5.5 stretch states did not significantly Fig. 8 Blocked force versus voltage for 3:5 DEMES
reduce the dielectric constant of the membrane; however, a
stretch state of 3:5 did. Further work to study dielectric con-
stant behaviour in VHB for non-equibiaxial stretch states
should be carried out to improve the accuracy of DEMES
simulation for device design.
The equilibrium position (θ in Fig. 5) of the DEMES was
compared between the model and experimental data. The
results are presented in Table 2. The model agreed well, with
a predicted equilibrium position falling within one standard
deviation of the experimental mean for both stretch states.
The model was used to calculate the blocked force for
two of the three DEMES membrane stretch states presented
in [13]. The ‘new’ model had a comparable match with the
‘old’ model presented in [13] for the 2:4 membrane stretch Fig. 9 Free displacement versus nominal electric field strength for 2:4
and 3:5 DEMES
state and a better match than the 3:5 membrane stretch
state as can be seen in Figs. 7 and 8. Note that, to ensure
good comparison with the old model, dielectric constants case, and the 3:5 case up to around 2500 V, where it began
from [13] were used. The old model took 97 minutes to sim- to diverge.
ulate blocked force and the new model took approximately
6 minutes for the same simulation.
Free displacement data for two different DEMES stretch 4 Case study
states, 2:4 and 3:5, were gathered from twelve DEMES, six
in each stretch state. All experimental data is presented in Once the model had been validated by comparison with the
Fig. 9 to show experimental scatter. In Figs. 10 and 11, the test results, it was used to find how the free displacement de-
model is compared with the experimental data for the 2:4 pends on the longitudinal stretch ratio at a fixed voltage of
stretch state and 3:5 stretch state cases, respectively. The 2500 V. To investigate this we chose a width stretch of 5.5
model matched the experimental results well for the 2:4 and length stretch ratios ranging from 1.5 to 5 in 0.5 incre-
512
Fig. 10 Free displacement versus voltage for 2:4 DEMES, comparing
model with experiment
Fig. 11 Free displacement versus voltage for 3:5 DEMES, comparing
model with experiment
ments and used the model to solve for the maximum stroke
in each case. A width stretch of 5.5 provides a reduction in
thickness which increases the applied electric field and the
breakdown strength of the membrane. For simplicity the di-
electric constant was assumed to remain fixed at εr = 4.1.
As can be seen in Fig. 12, there is a clear optimum stretch
state of 3:5.5 at 2500 V. This optimum produces over 50%
more stroke than the highest and almost equibiaxial stretch
state 5:5.5, and six times the stroke of the most anisotropic
stretch state 1.5:5.5. Whilst the prediction will not be perfect
due to the use of a fixed dielectric constant, the model has
identified the approximate design space to be pursued with
experimentation.
The equilibrium angle (θ in Fig. 5) showed large vari-
ations as a function of stretch ratio (Fig. 13). It was non-
intuitive that a low lengthwise stretch of 1.5 could lead to
such a low equilibrium angle, comparable to that exhibited
by a lengthwise stretch of 4, as shown in Fig. 14. Equally
unexpected was the trend of increasing equilibrium angle
with increasing lengthwise stretch exhibited in the 1.5 to 3
cases. Comparing Figs. 12 and 13, it was clear that this non-
intuitive behaviour was connected to the existence of a peak
in the free displacement.
B. O’Brien et al.
Fig. 12 Maximum stroke for Y:5.5, Y ranges from 1.5 to 5
Fig. 13 Equilibrium angle for Y:5.5, Y ranges from 1.5 to 5
Fig. 14 DEMES side views showing the effect of different membrane
stretch ratios (1.5:5.5 and 4.0:5.5) on the initial equilibrium state. The
apparent sharpness of the tip is an artifact of the view angle
The connection involved twisting of the frame and its ef-
fect on bending stiffness. As the longitudinal stretch ratio in-
creased from 1.5, the membrane shifted from a planar form
to one resembling a saddle. In the saddle form, the angle
of membrane attachment to the frame combined with the
tension in the stretched membrane to produce a torque that
twisted the frame, increasing its bending stiffness as shown
in Fig. 15. An increase in bending stiffness led to an increase
in equilibrium angle (less curl) which explains the trend de-
picted in Fig. 13. With a stretch state of around 3:5.5 a tip-
ping point was observed where the increasing bending mo-
ment overwhelmed the increase in bending stiffness. The net
result was that the equilibrium angle started to decrease with
increasing length tension past this point.
Finite element modelling of dielectric elastomer minimum energy structures 513

and the ability to simulate Maxwell pressure in membrane

elements, which are better suited to DEMES modelling.

6 Conclusions
Fig. 15 A schematic of the cross-section depicted in Fig. 14. As the
length stretch ratio increases, it twists the frame leading to an increase A new finite element modelling approach suitable for sim-
in bending stiffness and a decrease in curl
ulating DEA membranes in DEMES has been presented.
The models are an order of magnitude faster than the pre-
5 Discussion vious attempt; more accurate; and can be used to simulate
the equilibrium state, free displacement, and blocked force
The equilibrium position predicted by the model (Table 2) of DEMES. These features render the model suitable for use
fell within one standard deviation of the mean for both the in a design environment.
2:4 and 3:5 stretch states. This was a significant achieve- The approach is limited to the quasi-static case by the
ment and important metric as the behaviour of DEMES is way viscoelasticity is incorporated into the material strain
highly sensitive to equilibrium position. The model provided energy function. This could be overcome with implementa-
a good fit for the blocked force data, falling inside one stan- tion in an ABAQUS UMAT subroutine. The mathematics re-
dard deviation of the mean for both the 2:4 and 3:5 stretch quired to fully implement the model in ABAQUS have been
states at the higher voltages in the experiment, and falling presented in the hope that other researchers may find them
just outside at lower voltages (Figs. 7 and 8). The overes- useful. The results presented incorporate the influence of the
timation at low voltages was possibly caused by the quasi- non-equibiaxial stretch state on the dielectric constant.
steady state assumption, as the relaxation function may not Use of non-equibiaxial pre-stretching for optimisation of
have sufficient time to decay, leading to an overestimation DEMES behaviour was demonstrated. The validated model
of electrostatic energy density. was shown to be a powerful tool in this process through
The free displacement data was evenly distributed with- its use in maximising free displacement by manipulating
out any obvious clumping (Fig. 9) and a larger spread in the DEMES stretch state for a 2500 V applied voltage.
2:4 stretch states. A significant component of the experimen-
Acknowledgements The authors thank: The New Zealand Tertiary
tal uncertainty was caused by the photographic and image
Education Commission Bright Futures Scheme, The Auckland Bio-
processing experimental setup, and this was larger in the 2:4 engineering Institute, Industrial Research Limited, The Vice Chan-
cases which undergo smaller strokes. cellors University Development Fund, Todd Gisby, Scott Walbran,
The model predicted the free displacement to within one Pete Blythe, Michael Byrne, Cormac Flynn, Michelle Farrell, Mary
O’Brien, and Maurice O’Brien.
standard deviation for up to approximately 2500 V (Figs. 10
and 11). Above this voltage the model prediction and ex-
perimental results diverged for the 3:5 stretch states. This
Appendix
error may be due to increased sensitivity of the angle to
changes in system energy at high strokes. A preliminary in- Derivation of the strain energy function characteristic equa-
vestigation using the model to test this theory was incon- tion:
clusive and further investigation is beyond the scope of this Sub (5) into (8) and rearrange
paper. However, the study did predict the greatest sensitivity
for a 3:5 DEMES at around 90° which is consistent with U − AB(I¯1 ) 1
= 2 = λ21 λ22 (19)
observed behaviour. A second option is that the laser-cut K λ3
DEMES frames have a thicker melt zone around the edge
of the frame. This zone will affect the bending stiffness of Sub (5) into (6)
the frame and is potentially the source of the error at higher 1
strokes, where the moment arm of the free membrane is I¯1 = λ21 + λ22 + (20)
λ21 λ22
lower. Despite this divergence the model should still pro-
vide a useful tool for optimising the quasi-static behaviour Sub (5) into (7)
of DEMES.
1 1
Use of membrane and shell elements with 8 nodes and I¯2 = 2 + 2 + λ21 λ22 (21)
built-in electromechanical coupling instead of the 20-node λ1 λ2
solid elements used in previous models [13] reduced the Sub (20) into (21)
computational effort required to run the simulation by 94%.
1
The new model is also more accurate due to simulation of I¯2 λ21 λ22 = I¯1 − + λ41 λ42 (22)
Maxwell pressure corresponding to local element thickness λ21 λ22
514 B. O’Brien et al.

Sub (19) into (22)
U − AB(I¯1 )
I¯2
K and Materials 2002: Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices
 
K U − AB(I¯1 ) 2
= I¯1 − + (23)
U − AB(I¯1 ) K Stanford, Dielectric elastomers: generator mode fundamentals and
Rearrange (23)
  3   2
U − AB I¯1 − I¯2 K U − AB I¯1
  
+ I¯1 K 2 U − AB I¯1 − K 3 = 0 (24)
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