Long-term behavior of ionic electroactive polymer actuators in variable humidity conditions

Ionic electroactive polymers or IEAPs are considered as an attractive actuators and sensors in various applications. Many of these polymer composites are designed to be used in an ambient environment. However, the ambient conditions may significantly vary depending on the seasonal or the geographical irregularities generated by the power of nature. Taking the advantage of the fluctuating weather conditions of Estonia, different IEAP materials were continuously monitored for about 6 weeks. During this time the temperature and relative humidity of the ambient environment varied between 30-58 % and 23-29 degrees C respectively. The experiment was conducted in a non-air-conditioned lab facility where the parameters such as temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure were registered. Concurrently the electromechanical impedance of 12 actuators of different types was registered. This setup brings out the degradation as well as the impact of the environment to the IEAP actuators. The analysis reveals that the performance of the actuators under research is highly correlated with the ambient relative humidity level which can increase or decrease their performance more than 2 times. Naturally, this issue needs to be addressed in characterization, modeling and control areas. In contrast, the changes of pressure and temperature appeared to have no significant influence on the performance of the actuators investigated