Predicting the electrical breakdown strength of elastomers

Elastomers have extensive applications in engineering and industrial fields, such as stretchable electronics and soft robotics. Among the various properties of elastomers, electrical breakdown strength strongly affects their application and design due to safety reason. Nevertheless, measuring and determining the electrical breakdown strength of elastomers is a difficult challenge. This work proposes a general predictor and relation for the electrical breakdown strength of various types of elastomers. Based on configurational mechanics, the proposed predictor captures the stretch dependence, the voltage ramping-rate dependence and the elastic modulus dependence of the breakdown strength through the evolution of defects within the material and can effectively keep track of the variation of the electrical breakdown strength. The proposed predictor and relation can serve as a significant tool for the optimal design of elastomer-based electronics or devices and open new door for improving the electrical breakdown strength of elastomers.