A Consistent View on Cooperative Multistage Electrostatic Actuation

Abstract:
Electrostatic fields between electrodes of different potentials induce actuating forces in many different ways. A key question for the design of complex interacting multi-actuator systems is the consistent description of all these electrostatic effects in a way that all forces can be controlled from given and varying electrode potentials. A joining principle to describe all electrostatic effects on solids and liquids in this multiactuator system could be an electrostatic pressure. This should allow a unified simulation of forces between electrodes and forces on elastomers or liquids at once. In this work we investigate this method in a first step for uncoupled simplified electrostatic systems by Finite Element Method (FEM). For these uncoupled systems, this method yields realistic values, as comparison with force calculation via Energy minimization and literature shows.