Publications by Fabio Beco Albuquerque

Electrode Impact on the Electrical Breakdown of Dielectric Elastomer Thin Films

Dielectric Elastomer Actuators (DEAs) enable the realization of energy-efficient and compact actuator systems. DEAs operate at the kilovolt range with typically microampere-level currents and hence minimize thermal losses in comparison to low voltage/high ...

MDPI2023

Factors influencing the mean-time-to-failure of single-layer uniaxially prestretched silicone-based DEAs

Herbert Shea, Fabio Beco Albuquerque

We report an experimental investigation on the influence of electric field, electrode surface area, encapsulation layers and elastomer material on the mean-time-to-failure (MTTF) of single-layer uniaxially prestretched silicone-based dielectric elastomer a ...

SPIE-INT SOC OPTICAL ENGINEERING2022

Highly Stretchable Silicone Elastomer Applied in Soft Actuators

Fabio Beco Albuquerque, Pengpeng Hu

In this work, a highly stretchable silicone elastomer is incorporated into dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) in order to decrease operation voltages by applying high prestretches. Results show that the fabricated DEAs (5 mm diameter circle active regio ...

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH2022

Lifetime of dielectric elastomer actuators under DC electric fields

Fabio Beco Albuquerque

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are interesting soft actuators compared to other actuation technologies owing to large achievable actuation strains, high energy density and fast actuation. However, because DEAs need to be operated under high electric ...

EPFL2022

Actuator, valve actuator unit and valve

Herbert Shea, Fabio Beco Albuquerque

An actuator (22) comprises at least one actuator body (32) of dielectric elastomeric material and two electrodes (34, 36) being attached to opposite surfaces of the actuator body (32), respectively. At least one of the actuator body (32) and at least one o ...

2022

Effect of electrode composition and patterning method on the lifetime of silicone-based dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) under different environmental conditions

Herbert Shea, Fabio Beco Albuquerque

We report an experimental investigation of the lifetime of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) under constant DC actuation, with a characterization setup which allows the monitoring of strain and resistance over time for 6 DEAs in parallel. We show how t ...

SPIE-INT SOC OPTICAL ENGINEERING2021

Automated test setup to quantify the lifetime of dielectric elastomer actuators under a wide range of operating conditions

Herbert Shea, Fabio Beco Albuquerque, Valentin Colin Py, Djen Timo Kühnel

We present an automated test setup for the systematic performance and lifetime evaluation of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs). This setup, called the MAPLE setup, performs accelerated aging tests and allows quantifying how material choice, fabrication ...

IOP PUBLISHING LTD2021

Influence of electric field, temperature, humidity, elastomer material, and encapsulation on the lifetime of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) under DC actuation

Herbert Shea, Fabio Beco Albuquerque

We present the effect of electric field, temperature, humidity, type of elastomer material, and encapsulation on the lifetime of silicone-based dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) under DC electric fields. DEAs are promising soft actuators, but little ha ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2021

Influence of humidity, temperature and prestretch on the dielectric breakdown strength of silicone elastomer membranes for DEAs

Herbert Shea, Fabio Beco Albuquerque

Humidity, temperature and membrane prestretch influence the dielectric breakdown strength of elastomer membranes. These three factors thus also influence the maximum force and strain that dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) can generate, as the Maxwell p ...

IOP PUBLISHING LTD2020