Abstract
The importance of actuators that can be integrated with flexible robot structures and mechanisms has increased in recent years with the advance of soft robotics. In particular, electrohydrodynamic (EHD) actuators, which have expandable integrability to adapt to the flexible motion of soft robots, have received much attention in the field of soft robotics. Studies have deepened the understanding of steady states of EHD phenomena but nonsteady states are not well understood. We herein observe the development process of fluid in a microchannel adopting a Schlieren technique with the aid of a high-speed camera. In addition, we analyze the behavior of fluid flow in a microchannel that is designed to have pairs of parallel plate electrodes adopting a computational fluid dynamics technique. Results indicate the importance of considering flow generated by electrostatic energy, which tends to be ignored in constructing and evaluating EHD devices, and by the body force generated by the ion-drag force. By considering these effects, we estimate the development process of EHD flow and confirm the importance of considering the generation of vortices and their interactions inside the microchannel during the development of EHD devices.
Highlights
The importance of actuators, which can be integrated with flexible robot structures and mechanisms, has increased as soft robotics has become more advanced [1,2,3,4]
We investigate the behavior of fluid flow in the microchannel of an EHD actuator based on electrostatic energy, which is typically ignored when constructing and evaluating EHD devices, and the body force generated by the ion-drag force
There was no obvious net flow during the experiment. These results indicate that the assumptions of a steady state, an incompressible fluid in a single phase, and a static fluid are not applicable, even though they tend to be adopted in the development of EHD devices
Summary
The importance of actuators, which can be integrated with flexible robot structures and mechanisms, has increased as soft robotics has become more advanced [1,2,3,4] Soft materials, such as gels, papers, fluids, and biomaterials, have been actively studied to construct soft robots in efforts to mimic distinctive biological functions of living organisms [5, 6]. The actuation mechanism of soft actuators differs from that of conventional rigid actuators, and design strategies must be discussed prior to the integration of soft actuators into soft robotic systems [9, 10] Fluid actuators, such as hydraulic and pneumatic pressure actuators, have been widely investigated. An alternative driving source with a size comparable to that of the actuator is highly desired
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