Numerical Simulation of Thermo‐electro‐elastic Interactions in Electro‐active Polymers

Abstract

AbstractThe actuation response of electro‐active polymers (EAP) relies mainly on the coupling between the electric field and the mechanical field. However, the response of polymers can generally be temperature sensitive. Therefore, taking into account the thermal field in addition to the mechanical and the electric fields within a numerical framework may prove necessary to analyze the response of EAP, where temperature changes in the material may influence its behaviour significantly. This contribution presents a coupled thermo‐electro‐mechanical model, where from a numerical point of view direct temperature dependency of the electric and the coupled electro‐mechanical response can be either considered or neglected. Entropic thermo‐electro‐elasticity is adopted. Moreover, a corresponding monolithic and mixed finite element is used to simulate the response of quasi‐incompressible heterogeneous structures under different temperature conditions.