Rejuvenation of soft material-actuator
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Research Letter
Rejuvenation of soft material–actuator Aslan Miriyev, Cesar Trujillo, Gabriela Caires, and Hod Lipson, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University in the City of New York, 500 W 120th St., Mudd 220, New York, NY 10027, USA Address all correspondence to Aslan Miriyev at [email protected] (Received 23 January 2018; accepted 21 February 2018)
Abstract Akin to the natural tissues, soft artificial muscles possess a life cycle limited by aging and degradation phenomena. Here, we propose a rejuvenation method aimed at silicone-ethanol soft composite actuators, in which ethanol escape occurs during prolonged actuation, thus compromising their performance. The rejuvenation is achieved by immersion of the material–actuator in ethanol, allowing its diffusion into the silicone-based material until saturation. Repeatable rejuvenation of a soft robot, based on the soft material–actuator, resulted in retention of up to 100% of its functionality. Thus, we suggest that this method may be used for the rejuvenation of soft artificial muscles and material–actuators.
Introduction Growing demand for robots working alongside humans requires significant improvements to the human–robot interface, which is presently limited by rigid components of the conventional robotic systems. Incorporating soft materials into robot design may provide the much-needed compliance, allowing nature-like environment-adaptive soft robots to be engineered. The key challenge in soft-material robotics presently stems from the lack of materials combining actuation and sensing as an inherent responsive property.[1] Most of the existing soft actuation solutions, exerting both high stress and high strain,[2] are based either on hydraulic and pneumatic devices, inflating and deflating elastomer bladders [fluidic elastomer actuators (FEA),[3–8] pneumatic artificial muscles (PAM),[9–11] or on dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs)].[12–14] Unlike rigid robotic systems, FEAs and PAMs are able to withstand mechanical impacts.[15] However, as they are prone to physical damage, such as perforations and cuts, their inflating ability is limited and their actuation functionality is compromised.[15,16] Purely elastomeric pneumatic channels were reported to weaken during repeated inflating even in the absence of punctures.[17] This shortcoming has led to the development of bio-inspired self-healing solutions, allowing punctures to be sealed, thereby extending the actuator functionality.[18] Self-healing methods for these soft actuators include, among others, blending of uncured silicone matrix with polyaramid fibers,[17] shaping Diels–Adler polymers into inflatable chambers,[16] and incorporating excess UV-curable resin into 3D-printed hydraulic elastomer actuators.[18] DEAs are also prone to physical damage, whereby small externally introduced or manufacturing-related defects may lead to failure. In these actuators, high voltages (typically
exceeding 1 kV) are utilized to induce an electromechanical response in an elastomeric membrane, which is san
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