A complete thermo–electro–viscoelastic characterization of dielectric elastomers, Part I: Experimental investigations

Dielectric elastomers are a class of solid polymeric materials that sufficiently soft to deform under the application an electric field due interaction quasi-static charges. Their potential undergo large deformations renders them promising candidates for design energy harvesters, sensors and actuators. For their however, influence additional thermal effects should be taken into account as base frequently show distinct sensitivity drastically influences mechanical response. This contribution presents results wide range experiments conducted on popular dielectric elastomer VHB 4905™ combination mechanical, loading scenarios. These performed in such way obtained well suited identification necessary material parameters appearing thermo–electro–viscoelastic constitutive model will subsequently presented second part contribution.