Polynomial fitting techniques applied to opto-mechanical properties of PDMS Sylgard 184 for given curing parameters

Abstract

Mechanical and optical properties of Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) have been measured and reported for different applications, however, a full analysis and a compendium of its tension and compression moduli behaviour have not been carried out, nor of its refractive index, for several mixture ratios, temperature and curing time. In this work, samples of PDMS were manufactured and tested to know tension and compression moduli and refractive index as a function of fabrication parameters; Minitab ^® , Matlab ^® ’s Least-squares fitting in Curve Fitting Toolbox™ and genetic algorithms were employed to yield functional dependencies to describe PDMS’s behavior. The obtained fitting polynomials are shown to have large agreement with experimental data. Finally, a potential application in the design of a gradient index lens for use in artificial vision is presented.

Keywords

• polydimethylsiloxane
• mechanical characterization
• PDMS´ optomechanical properties