Silicone elastomers exposed to electrical discharges can be rendered hydrophilic, and the loss of water repellency is related to the energy level and number of the discharge pulses on the surface. However, the silicone surface has the unique ability to recover the hydrophobicity and enhance the performance of a polymer insulator. Most of the studies of the loss and recovery of hydrophobicity on...

A new design for a multi-layer dielectric elastomer actuator, reinforced with periodic stiffeners is presented. The resulting actuator enables complex out-ofplane motion without the need of the elastomer membrane prestretch. An in situ optical imaging system is used to capture the complex deformation pattern and track the non-planar displacement and curvature under the applied voltage. The role...

The ability to track individual animals is crucial in many field studies and often requires applying marks to captured individuals. Toe clipping has historically been a standard marking method for wild amphibian populations, but more recent marking methods include visual implant elastomer and photo identification. Unfortunately, few studies have investigated the influence and effectiveness of m...

Textile-based transducers are an innovative category of devices that use conductive fibres meshed with elastic textile fabrics. Within this paper, a new class of strain sensors, which represents an excellent trade-off between figures of merit in mechano-electrical transduction and possibility of integration in textiles, is presented. Electrically conductive elastomer composites show piezo-resis...

It is desirable to obtain materials that have high vibration damping while maintaining other structural properties. Aerospace quality composite materials typically have greater strength and stiffness to weight ratios than most metals, while providing increased damping. However, their passive damping capacities are not enough for some applications. Fiber reinforced elastomers (FRE) or elastomer ...

Injectable materials often have shortcomings in mechanical and drug-eluting properties that are attributable to their high water contents. A water-free, liquid four-armed PEG modified with dopamine end groups is described which changed from liquid to elastic solid by reaction with a small volume of Fe3+ solution. The elastic modulus and degradation times increased with increasing Fe3+ concentra...

This paper presents a robotic manipulation system capable of autonomously positioning a multi-segment soft fluidic elastomer robot in three dimensions. Specifically, we present an extremely soft robotic manipulator morphology that is composed entirely from low durometer elastomer, powered by pressurized air, and designed to be both modular and durable. To understand the deformation of a single ...

The reference electronic skin is a sensor array based on PVDF (Polyvinylidene fluoride) piezoelectric polymers, coupled to a rigid substrate and covered by an elastomer layer. It is first evaluated how a distributed normal force (Hertzian distribution) is transmitted to an extended PVDF sensor through the elastomer layer. A simplified approach based on Boussinesq's half-space assumption is used...

The role of binder deformation and the associated energy dissipation on the detonation sensitivity of plastically bonded explosives is considered by accounting for dilatation-sensitive viscoelastic shear response. Following the observation that pressurization can prolong the relaxation and retardation times of a viscoelastic elastomer tremendously, the implications of this phenomenon are consid...

Cellular forces are closely related to many physiological processes, including cell migration, growth, division, and differentiation. Here, we describe newly developed techniques to measure these forces with high spatial resolution. Our approach is based on ultrasoft silicone elastomer films with a regular microstructure molded into the surface. Mechanical forces applied by living cells to such...