Ionic Polymer Transducer Sensing Response to Shear Deformation

Ionic polymer transducers (IPTs) show promise as both actuators and sensors. However, experiments show that the voltage required to actuate these materials is not symmetric to the voltage in sensing response of these materials. Therefore, the physical mechanism responsible for actuation is different than the mechanism for sensing. It is hypothesized that the physical mechanism responsible for sensing is streaming potential, as this supposition can explain the existence of an IPT response in any mode of deformation. This work will look specifically at developing a model of IPT sensing response to shear deformation. The scale at which the proposed mechanism operates is on the micro level, thus the study explores the implications of IPT phenomena at this length scale, but then volume averages it to the transducer length scale.