Soft pneumatic actuators with controllable stiffness by bio‐inspired lattice chambers and fused deposition modeling 3D printing

Lalegani Dezaki, M ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5680-1550, Bodaghi, M ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0707-944X, Serjouei, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7250-4131, Afazov, S ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5346-1933 and Zolfagharian, A, 2022. Soft pneumatic actuators with controllable stiffness by bio‐inspired lattice chambers and fused deposition modeling 3D printing. Advanced Engineering Materials. ISSN 1438-1656

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Abstract

This article shows how changing 3D printing parameters and using bio-inspired lattice chambers can engineer soft pneumatic actuators (SPAs) with different behaviors in terms of controlling tip deflection and tip force using the same input air pressure. Fused deposition modeling (FDM) is employed to 3D print soft pneumatic actuators using varioShore thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) materials with a foaming agent. The effects of material flow and nozzle temperature parameters on the material properties and stiffness are investigated. Auxetic, columns, face-centered cubic, honeycomb, isotruss, oct vertex centroid, and square honeycomb lattices are designed to study actuators’ behaviors under the same input pressure. Finite-element simulations based on the nonlinear hyper-elastic constitutive model are carried out to precisely predict the behavior, deformation, and tip force of the actuators. A closed-loop pneumatic system and sensors are developed to control the actuators. Results show that lattice designs can control the bending angle and generated force of actuators. Also, the lattices increase the ultimate strength by controlling the contact area inside the chambers. They demonstrate variable stiffness behaviors and deflections under the same pressure between 100 and 500 kPa. The proposed actuators could be instrumental in designing wearable hand rehabilitative devices that assist customized finger and wrist flexion-extension.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Advanced Engineering Materials
Creators:	Lalegani Dezaki, M., Bodaghi, M., Serjouei, A., Afazov, S. and Zolfagharian, A.
Publisher:	Wiley
Date:	20 December 2022
ISSN:	1438-1656
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1002/adem.202200797 DOI 1639135 Other
Rights:	©2022 The Authors. Advanced Engineering Materials published by Wiley-VCH GmbH. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Science and Technology
Record created by:	Laura Ward
Date Added:	27 Jan 2023 12:08
Last Modified:	27 Jan 2023 12:08
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/48085

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