Abstract
To study the effect of food flow rheology on the human esophageal swallowing process, a biologically inspired actuator prototype has been developed. The actuator is made of silicone rubber where smooth and continuous peristaltic motion is generated by inflating air chambers distributed within its body. The soft material gives the actuator intrinsic compliance and infinite degrees of freedom in motion. Thus, it is challenging to model the behavior online by current methods. In order to investigate the large-scale deformation of the soft-bodied actuator in response to the air chamber pressures, a geometrically simplified two-dimensional (2-D) model composed of separated beam-shaped elements is proposed. It considers the mechanical properties of the material, the sophisticated geometry of the actuator as it deforms, and the distributed pressure behavior. Empirical data from the actuator prototype (captured by articulography) and the simulated results are compared to investigate the accuracy of the model. The differences of deformations between the experimental results and the theoretical model are analyzed.
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