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Harvesting energy with an out‐of‐plane dielectric elastomer generator
Author(s) -
Bortot Eliana,
Gei Massimiliano
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
pamm
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1617-7061
DOI - 10.1002/pamm.201510180
Subject(s) - hyperelastic material , dielectric , radius , generator (circuit theory) , elastomer , materials science , plane (geometry) , composite material , mechanics , physics , structural engineering , mathematics , engineering , computer science , optoelectronics , geometry , power (physics) , thermodynamics , finite element method , computer security
This note concerns the numerical analysis of the performance of an annular membrane dielectric elastomer generator deforming non‐homogeneously out‐of‐plane. The prestretch of the membrane is crucial for an improved behaviour of this device. We evaluate its positive effects on the performance by employing a hyperelastic formulation. Moreover, fixing the external radius, we compare the behaviour of two generators characterized by different values of the radius ratio R e /R i , namely 2 and 4. Numerical results show that the generator with the smaller ratio has a better performance. (© 2015 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)