Effect of electro-mechanical coupling on actuation behavior of a carbon nanotube cellular structure

Jagtap, Piyush and Gowda, Prarthana and Das, Bikramjit and Kumar, Praveen (2013) Effect of electro-mechanical coupling on actuation behavior of a carbon nanotube cellular structure. In: CARBON, 60 . pp. 169-174.

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Abstract

We demonstrate the effect of mechanical strain on the electrostrictive behavior of catalytically grown cellular structure of carbon nanotube (CNT). In the small strain regime, where the stress-strain behavior of the material is linear, application of an electric-field along the mechanical loading direction induces an instantaneous increase in the stress and causes an increase in the apparent Young's modulus. The instantaneous increase in the stress shows a cubic-polynomial dependence on the electric-field, which is attributed to the non-linear coupling of the mechanical strain and the electric-field induced polarization of the CNT. The electrostriction induced actuation becomes >100 times larger if the CNT sample is pre-deformed to a small strain. However, in the non-linear stress-strain regime, although a sharp increase in the apparent Young's modulus is observed upon application of an electric-field, no instantaneous increase in the stress occurs. This characteristic suggests that the softening due to the buckling of individual CNT compensates for any instantaneous rise in the electrostriction induced stress at the higher strains. We also present an analytical model to elucidate the experimental observations. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	CARBON
Publisher:	PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article is belongs to PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Materials Engineering (formerly Metallurgy) Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Instrumentation Appiled Physics
Date Deposited:	24 Sep 2013 06:50
Last Modified:	24 Sep 2013 06:50
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/47291

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