CAE approach in application of Nafion-Pt composite (ICPF) actuators - analysis for surface wipers of NASA MUSES-CN nanorovers

Nafion-Pt composite (ICPF) is one of the most practical electroactive polymer nearest to applications. In this paper, motion of ICPF was analyzed to design a dust wiper of a visual/IR window of Nanorover of NASA MUSES-CN mission by applying Kanno-Tadokoro simulation model. This is a gray-box model between input (voltage) and output (displacement) consisting of 3 stages: an electrical stage, a stress generation stage and a mechanical stage. In the electrical stage, the input is voltage and the output is distributed current through the membrane. In the stress generation stage, the input is the current and the output is internal stress. The mechanical stage is approximated by an elastic body or a viscoelastic body. Many results have shown validity of this model. As a result of analysis, the following were revealed. Strain near the electrode is larger than that at the tip. The actuator shows a rolling-up shape at the edges. The larger the aspect ratio of ICPF is, the larger the displacement is, because this spoils the actuator motion. A crosspiece at the tip prevents ICPF from rolling up and the efficiency is improved. Too long crosspiece disables ICPF from moving with a good performance.