Title
Characteristics evaluation of PVC gel actuators
Abstract
A poly vinyl chloride (PVC) gel actuator shows great potential for use as an artificial muscle because of such positive characteristics as movement in the air, large deformation, and being lightweight. A bending type actuator using PVC gel was studied previously [4]-[6]. We have proposed the structure of a contraction type actuator to construct an artificial muscle, and we have conducted some experiments using the single-layer PVC gel actuator [8]. In this paper, we investigate the characteristics of the multi-layer PVC gel actuator experimentally and evaluate its specifications in terms of the composition of PVC gel and the structure of the mesh electrode. The experimental results showed that the contraction rate of the actuator was about 14%, the response rate was 7Hz, and the output force was 4kPa. Also, we found that the stiffness of the actuator increased as the applied dc field increased like human muscle. The characteristics of the PVC gel actuator are shown to be very effective for constructing an artificial muscle.
Year
DOI
Venue
2009
10.1109/IROS.2009.5354417
IROS
Keywords
Field
DocType
pvc gel actuators,gel actuator,pvc gel actuator,human muscle,contraction type actuator,characteristics evaluation,dc field,contraction rate,pvc gel,artificial muscle,type actuator,response rate,anodes,force,elasticity,muscle,bending,actuators
Stiffness,Computer science,Anode,Bending,Control engineering,Deformation (mechanics),Artificial muscle,Elasticity (economics),Electrode,Actuator
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
4
0.91
1
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Naoki Ogawa1103.29
Minoru Hashimoto25010.54
Midori Takasaki3102.61
Toshihiro Hirai4102.95