Abstract
This paper reports the experimental study of a new actuation system that couples abraided artificial pneumatic muscle (BAPM) with a metal hydride driven hydrogencompressor to create a compact, lightweight, noiseless system capable of high forces andsmooth actuation. The results indicate that the metal hydride–BAPM system has relativelygood second law efficiency average of 30% over the desorption cycle. The thermal efficiencyis low, due mainly to the highly endothermic chemical reaction that releases the storedhydrogen gas from the metal hydride. The force to metal hydride weight is very high(∼14 000 NForce/kgMH) considering that this system has not been optimized to use the minimum amount of metalhydride required for a full actuation stroke of the fluidic muscle. Also, a thermodynamicmodel for the complete system is developed. The analysis is restricted in some aspectsconcerning the complexity of the hydriding/dehydriding chemical process of the system andthe three-dimensional geometry of the reactor, but it provides a useful comparison to otheractuation devices and clearly reveals the parameters necessary for optimization of theactuation system in future work. The system shows comparable work output and has thebenefits of biological muscle-like properties for potential use in robotic systems.
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