In a general manner, the present thesis focuses on electrostrictive polymers which can be used either as flexible electromechanical actuators or as sensors or energy harvesters. Chapter 1 is a general introduction to electro-mechanical coupled systems. The choice of the materials is described and focuses on dielectric elastomers, polyurethane (PU) with conductive carbon black (CB) nano-particle fillers. Chapter 2 focuses on the film synthesis. CB nano-particles in the form of micelles and solution cast method were employed to provide good filler dispersion. The strain enhancement of a factor of 1.6 was obtained by 0.89 vol% CB doping. Chapter 3 exposes the modeling of electrostrictive actuation and in particular the saturation of the polarization. By modeling the polarization as a nonlinear function depending on two variables (low-level permittivity and saturation field), it is therefore possible to describe several phenomena that cannot be explained by a classical linear and homogeneous approach. Simulations performed using such an approach show a good agreement with experimental results. Chapter 4 presents the comparison between pure PU and composite films. It includes mechanical/electrical characterization as well as XRD or DSC measurements to detect the crystallization level. High dispersion level was visually confirmed. Strains of the order of 50 % were reached. Chapter 5 deals with the effect of electric charge injection by homogeneous electron beam irradiation (HEBI) on the electrostrictive strain. This technique therefore permits a gain of 2 on the obtained strain and seems to significantly reduce the losses in the material as well.
