Surface Tension Effects on Surface Instabilities of Dielectric Elastomers

Dielectric elastomers have recently been proposed for various biologically-relevant applications, in which they may operate in fluidic environments where surface tension effects may have a significant effect on their stability and reliability. Here, we present a theoretical analysis coupled with computational modeling for a generalized electromechanical analysis of surface stability in dielectric elastomers accounting for surface tension effects. For mechanically deformed elastomers, significant increases in critical strain and instability wavelength are observed for small elastocapillary numbers. When the elastomers are deformed electrostatically, both surface tension and the amount of pre-compression are found to substantially increase the critical electric field while decreasing the instability wavelength.