Fluid-structure interaction modelling of a soft pneumatic actuator

This paper presents a fully coupled fluid-structure interaction (FSI) simulation model of a soft pneumatic actuator (SPA). Previous research on modelling and simulation of SPAs mostly involves finite element modelling (FEM), in which the fluid pressure is considered as pressure load uniformly acting on the internal walls of the actuator. However, FEM modelling does not capture the physics of the fluid flow inside an SPA. An accurate modelling of the physical behaviour of an SPA requires a two-way FSI analysis that captures and transfers information from fluid to solid and vice versa. Furthermore, the investigation of the fluid flow inside the flow channels and chambers of the actuator are vital for an understanding of the fluid energy distribution and the prediction of the actuator performance. The FSI modelling is implemented on a typical SPA and the flow behaviour inside the actuator is presented. Moreover, the bending behaviour of the SPA from the FSI simulation results is compared with a corresponding FEM simulation.

Subjects

fluid-structure interaction (FSI)

soft pneumatic actuator (SPA)

pneumatic networks (PneuNets)

hyperelastic material

DDC Class

600: Technik

620: Ingenieurwissenschaften

Funding(s)

Publikationsfonds 2021

More Funding Information

This publication was supported by the funding programme “Open Access Publishing” of Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH).

Publication version

publishedVersion

Lizenz

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Name

actuators-10-00163-v3.pdf

Size

4.31 MB

Format

Adobe PDF

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Fluid-structure interaction modelling of a soft pneumatic actuator