• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.10 no.11
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• pp.981-990
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• 2004

Specialized propulsors for naval applications have numerous opportunities in terms of research, design and fabrication of an appropriate propulsor. One of the most important components of any propulsor is the actuator that provides the mode of locomotion. Ionomeric electro-active polymer may offer an attractive solution for locomotion of small propulsors. A common ionomeric electro-active polymer, ionic Polymer-Metal Composites (IPHCs) give large true bending deformations under low driving voltages, operate in aqueous environments, are capable of transduction and are relatively well understood. IPMC fabrication and operation are presented to further elucidate the use of the material for a propulsor. Various materials, including IPMCs, are investigated and a simplified propulsor model is explored.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.4 no.5
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• pp.549-563
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• 2008

The ability of an electroactive polymer, IPMC (Ionic Polymer Metal Composites,) to produce electric charge under mechanical deformations may be exploited for the development of next generation of energy harvesters. Two different electrode types (gold and platinum) were employed for the experiments. The sample was tested under dynamic conditions, produced through programmed shaking. In order to evaluate the potential of IPMC for dry condition, these samples were treated with ionic liquid. Three modes of mechanical deformations (bending, tension and shear) were analyzed. Experimental results clearly indicate that IPMCs are attractive applicants for energy harvesting, with inherent advantages like flexibility, low cost, negligible maintenance and virtually infinite longevity. Besides, preliminary energy harvesting model of IPMC has been formulated based upon the work of previous investigators (Newbury 2002, Newbury and Leo 2002, Lee, et al. 2005, Konyo, et al. 2004) and the simulation results reciprocate experimental results within acceptable error.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.24-30
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• 2008

The laminate IPMC actuator have been developed with a commercial Nafion film and platinum electrodes. Equivalent beam and equivalent bimorph beam models for IPMC(Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite) actuators are described. By using a beam equation with estimated physical properities and actuation displacements of a cantilevered IPMC actuator are estimated. And Finite element analysis(FEA) was done by ANSYS.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.586-590
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• 2006

As one of electro active polymers for soft smart materials, the ionic polymer metal composites (IPMC) are easy to produce through chemical reduction processing and show high displacements at low voltage. When the IPMC actuates, the deformation depends on a few factors including the structure of based membrane, species and morphology of the metal electrodes, the nature of cations and the level of hydration. As previously published, we have been studying on improvement of actuation through surface electrode modification of IPMC to grasp the effect of electrode morphology on actuation. This study is comparative experiments through the chemical reaction and deposition by ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD) in order to prepare the very thin and homogeneous surface electrode of IPMC. The IPMCs were prepared with different surface roughness of polymer membrane, and the influence of the surface roughness on the actuation was studied. By investigating the electrical properties and driving displacement, the actuating properties of IPMC with different surface roughness were studied.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.7
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• pp.867-887
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• 2010

An energy-based variational approach is used for structural dynamic modeling of the IPMC (Ionic Polymer Metal Composites) flapping wing. Dynamic characteristics of the wing are analyzed using numerical simulations. Starting with the initial design, critical parameters which have influence on the performance of the wing are identified through parametric studies. An optimization study is performed to obtain improved flapping actuation of the IPMC wing. It is shown that the optimization algorithm leads to a flapping wing with dimensions similar to the dragonfly Aeshna Multicolor wing. An unsteady aerodynamic model based on modified strip theory is used to obtain the aerodynamic forces. It is found that the IPMC wing generates sufficient lift to support its own weight and carry a small payload. It is therefore a potential candidate for flapping wing of micro air vehicles.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.527-532
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• 2005

Ionic polymer metal composites (IPMC) are soft polymeric smart materials having large displacement at low voltage in air and water. The polymeric electrolyte actuator consists of a thin and porous membrane and metal electrodes plated on both faces, in impregnation electro-plating method. The response and actuation of actuator are governed. Among many factors governing the activation and response of IPMC actuator, the surface electrode plays an important role. In this study, the well-designed modification of electrode surface was carried out in order to improve the chemical stability well as electromechanical characteristics of the IPMC actuator. We employed Ion Beam Assisted Deposition (IBAD) method to prepare the topologically homogeneous thin surface electrode. After roughing the surface of Nafion membrane in order to get a larger surface area, the IPMC was prepared by impregnation for electro-plating and re- coating on the surface through traditional chemical deposition, followed by an additional surface treatment with high conductive metals with IBAD. It was observed that our IPMC specimen shows the enhanced surface electrical properties as well as the improved actuation and response characteristics under applied electric field.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.434-439
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• 2012

To improve the performance of ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC) actuators, Nafion films sandwiched with Nafion/conducting nanoparticulate electrospun webs were used as polymer electrolytes of IPMC. Multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWNT) and silver were the conducting nanoparticulates and the nanoparticles dispersed in a Nafion solution were electrospun. IPMCs with the Nafion/conducting nanoparticulate electrospun webs displayed improved displacements, response rates, and blocking forces. MWNT was superior to silver in terms of displacement and blocking force, and the webs without the conducting fillers also caused enhanced performances compared with the conventional IPMCs. These improvements were attributed to an elevated electrolyte flux through highly porous interlayers and capacitance induced by well dispersed conducting fillers, and low interfacial resistance between electrolyte and electrodes.

• International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems
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• v.4 no.6
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• pp.748-755
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• 2006

In this paper, a trade-off design and fabrication of IPMC(Ionic Polymer Metal Composites) as an actuator for a flapping device have been described. Experiments for the internal solvent loss of IPMCs have been conducted for various combinations of cation and solvent in order to find out the best combination of cation and solvent for minimal solvent loss and higher actuation force. From the experiments, it was found that IPMCs with heavy water as their solvent could operate longer. Relations between length/thickness and tip force of IPMCs were also quantitatively identified for the actuator design from the tip force measurement of 200, 400, 640, and $800{\mu}m$ thick IPMCs. All IPMCs thicker than $200{\mu}m$ were processed by casting $Nafion^{TM}$ solution. The shorter and thicker IPMCs tended to generate higher actuation force but lower actuation displacement. To improve surface conductivity and to minimize solvent evaporation due to electrically heated electrodes, gold was sputtered on both surfaces of the cast IPMCs by the Physical Vapor Deposition(PVD) process. For amplification of a short IPMC's small actuation displacement to a large flapping motion, a rack-and-pinion type hinge was used in the flapping device. An insect wing was attached to the IPMC flapping mechanism for its flapping test. In this test, the wing flapping device using the $800{\mu}m$ thick IPMC. could create around $10^{\circ}{\sim}85^{\circ}$ flapping angles and $0.5{\sim}15Hz$ flapping frequencies by applying $3{\sim|}4V$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.829-833
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• 2007

IPMC-EMIM (Ionic Polyer Metal Composites + 1-ethyl-3- methyl imidazolium trifluromethane sulfonate, EMIM-Tfo) is fabricated by substituting ionic liquid for water in Nafion film, which improves water sensitiveness of IPMC and guarantees uniform performance regardless of the surrounding environment. In this paper, we will introduce the design and analysis of AF Lens Actuator using IPMC-EMIM. We will briefly introduce the procedure of fabrication of IPMC-EMIM first, and proceed on to define the necessary variables, analyze performance by changing the value of the variables, make a designed AF Lens Actuator, and measure the performance of one of them.

• Composites Research
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.401-407
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• 2016

IPMC is composed of thin ion conductive polymer film sandwiched between metallic electrodes plated on both surfaces. Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite (IPMC) generates voltages when bent by mechanical stimuli. IPMC has a potential for the variety of energy harvesting applications due to its soft and hydrophilic characteristics. However, the large-scale implementation is necessary to increase the output power. In this paper, the scale-up of surface area effect on voltage generation characteristics of IPMC was investigated using IPMC samples with different surface areas. Also, a circuit model simulating both the output voltage and its offset variations was designed for estimating the voltages from IPMC samples. The proposed model simulated the output voltages with offsets well corresponding to various frequencies of input bending motion. However, some samples showed that the increase of error between real and simulated voltages with time due to the nonlinear characteristic of offset variations.