University of Twente Student Theses
Design improvement for a pneumatic soft inflatable actuator
Greef, D. de (2024) Design improvement for a pneumatic soft inflatable actuator.
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| Abstract: | In an attempt to reduce the requirements of the pneumatic source and possibly move to an unthetered setup, a design improvement to the soft inflatable actuator is presented in this paper. Current state of the art soft actuators tend to be shaped as a solid pouch of air, while the newly proposed design is shaped as a hollow cylinder. The newly proposed design consumes a lower volume of air for inflation, while achieving similar output forces in bending applications. The increased performance per unit volume air is observed at all pressures tested and is supported by a theoretical model. There is however a significant discrepancy between the results of the theoretical model and the experimental results, which will require further research to prove the validity of the theoretical model. When the actuator is axially loaded the results from the theoretical model match with the experimental results and no improvement per unit volume is observed. It is hypothesised that an improvement will be found for a long and slender design, however, this was not experimentally investigated. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | ET: Engineering Technology |
| Subject: | 52 mechanical engineering |
| Programme: | Mechanical Engineering MSc (60439) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/98131 |
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