Three dimensional simulation of the dynamics of electro active polymers using shell elements

摘要

The development of electro active polymers represents a very active branch of research with many applications principally devoted to biological systems. In particular the simulation of these materials is a very important topic in order to predict their behavior. In this work we propose and analyse, from a mathematical point of view, an algorithm for the simulation of active polymers arranged in possibly complex geometries. This algorithm has been designed to be implemented with three dimensional unstructured grids coupled with shell elements to take into account, in a computationally efficient manner, boundary effects and boundary layers. In particular we focus on the existence of a discrete and positive solution of the algorithm. A comparison between the results obtained and the experimental data is included: we aim to reproduce the results obtained by two classical tests in this field i.e. the electric impedance spectroscopy and the displacement of polymers when subjected to an external electric field.