Effects of applied potential on friction of a PVDF micro gripper

Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) is a commercially available, piezoelectric polymer. It is widely utilized due to its advantageous mechanical, chemical, and electromechanical properties. In this paper, we discuss a PVDF microgripper and then characterize its gripping (frictional) force. This mechanical characterization of the PVDF will be helpful to design the microgripper. The microgripper has many applications like surgeries, microassembly and micromanipulation. The friction force is an important criterion that greatly affects the gripping. The actuation of the gripper is done by applying voltage. It is fundamentally interesting to understand the effects of the applied voltage on the coefficient of friction. The friction force was measured as a function of the applied voltage. It was found that the increasing voltage applied on the sample lead to an increase in the coefficient of friction measured on the surface of the sample. This work serves as an investigation on the effect of applied voltage on the friction coefficient of the sample. The possible mechanisms behind this phenomenon are also discussed here.