Abstract

This work describes the approach, experimental set-up and procedures that have been developed to characterize the lifetime of dielectric elastomer transducers (DETs) against electrical loading. In addition, it reports and discusses the results obtained from the lifetime testing of frame-stretched circular DET specimens based on a custom-made styrenic rubber. The proposed methodology and obtained experimental results can be used in a design procedure to find optimal trade-offs between DET performance and lifetime/reliability.