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Analysis of institutional authors

Alibakhshi, AAuthorBenitez, JmAuthorMontans, FjCorresponding Author

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Low-voltage dielectric elastomer actuators by electro-mechanical resonance syntonization

Publicated to:International Journal Of Mechanical Sciences. 263 108758- - 2024-02-01 263(), DOI: 10.1016/j.ijmecsci.2023.108758

Authors: Rahmanian, Sasan; Alibakhshi, Amin; Mouharrar, Hamza; Benitez, Jose Maria; Montans, Francisco Javier

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Abstract

Generally, a serious practical limitation of dielectric elastomer (DE)-based capacitors is the need for high voltage supply (in the order of 1 kV) to activate them. High voltages require a power level that is currently challenging due to the limit in the operating range of existing function generators. These high voltages are also dangerous for humans, thereby overshadowing many applications of dielectric elastomers. The purpose of this work is to develop a new simple actuation technique to introduce low-voltage driven DE-based capacitors, in which the electrical resonant frequency is syntonized to the mechanical natural frequency by tuning the circuit inductance. This results in extensive voltage amplification across the DE capacitor. In turn, this leads the DE membrane to oscillate with a remarkable large motion using a small voltage which is of one-tenth the magnitude of the input voltage required to drive such systems in the absence of electro-mechanical (EM) resonance syntonization. The efficiency of the proposed approach is demonstrated in the context of nonlinear vibration analysis. The results show that the voltage amplitude across the DE capacitor is amplified substantially while the electrical mode is syntonized with the mechanical one, and as a result, the DE motion's amplitude is at least two hundred times greater than that of the unmatched system. Furthermore, for unbiased AC voltages with large amplitudes, the electro-mechanical modal interaction causes the system to exhibit the formation of frequency combs in the frequency spectrum of the system's response. The implementation of this method using a simple electrical circuit just requires adequate matching between the electrical and the mechanical natural frequencies that depends on the inductance value. Our proposal effectively eliminates the need for a high source voltage generator which has been the main limitation in designing DE-based capacitors.

Keywords

Dielectric elastomersElectro-mechanical resonance syntonizationFrequency combsLow-power voltage generatorsSecondary hopf bifurcation

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal International Journal Of Mechanical Sciences due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2024 there are still no calculated indicators, but in 2023, it was in position 7/183, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Engineering, Mechanical. Notably, the journal is positioned above the 90th percentile.

Independientemente del impacto esperado determinado por el canal de difusión, es importante destacar el impacto real observado de la propia aportación.

Según las diferentes agencias de indexación, el número de citas acumuladas por esta publicación hasta la fecha 2025-06-07:

  • WoS: 4
  • Scopus: 4
  • OpenCitations: 4

Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2025-06-07:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 8.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 8 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 2.35.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 3 (Altmetric).

Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: Canada; United States of America.

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: Last Author (MONTANS LEAL, FRANCISCO JAVIER).

the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been MONTANS LEAL, FRANCISCO JAVIER.