Abstract
This work presents the numerical modelling of nonlinear thermo-electro-elasticity in the context of electro-active polymers (EAPs). EAPs are characterised by their electro-mechanical coupling behaviour that converts electrical into mechanical energy. As polymeric materials in general are sensitive to the influence of temperature, thermal effects play an important role in the material behaviour of EAPs. Based on a thermo-electro-mechanically coupled constitutive framework presented in an earlier contribution, a variational formulation is developed and the finite-element method is employed to solve the nonlinear thermo-electro-mechanical coupling problem. The numerical implementation is studied by means of several examples.
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