Bandopadhya, DibakarNjuguna, James A. K.2012-08-302012-08-302012-08-31Dibakar Bandopadhya and James Njuguna, Estimation of bending resistance of ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) actuator following variable parameters pseudo-rigid body model. Materials Letters, Volume 63, Issues 9–10, 15 April 2009, Pages 745-7470167-577Xhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2008.12.048http://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/7524In this article bending resistance of IPMC has been estimated following a newly proposed variable parameters pseudo-rigid body model. First an experiment is conducted to study the voltage versus bending characteristics of IPMC and based on the experimental data the IPMC has been modeled through the proposed technique. Simulation has been performed and estimation of bending resistance has been made based on experimental results. It is observed that bending resistance of IPMC increases with input voltages although the changes remain insignificant after certain range. (c) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.en-UKThis is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Materials Letters. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Materials Letters, Volume 63, Issues 9–10, 15 April 2009, Pages 745-747. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2008.12.048Article