Fabrication and testing of cellulose EAPap actuators for haptic application

Piezoelectric behavior of the cellulose electro-active paper (EAPap) actuators is studied for a possible haptic actuator. Using a thin stretched EAPap film with a material fiber orientation of 45°, stacked and unimorph EAPap actuators are prepared and their performance is investigated as functions of frequency and applied electric field. A small actuation displacement is observed from the stacked EAPap actuator. The displacement of the stacked actuator is dependent on the actuation frequency. The actuation displacement and resonance frequency of the unimorph type EAPap actuators are investigated with different beam lengths. At 1 Hz, the piezoelectric constant d₃₃ of the 32-layer-stacked EAPap actuator is about 150 pm/V and decreases as the operating frequency increases. A unimorph EAPap actuator with 60 mm length and 10 mm width shows a 75 μm of bending displacement at 10 Hz. From the experimental study, we demonstrate the feasibility of the cellulose EAPap for haptic applications.