On the soft robotics constitutive laws

Authors

  • Simona Ioana Dumitru
  • Cornel Brisan
  • Dan Dumitriu
  • Vetunia Chiroiu

Keywords:

soft robotics, nanostructured materials, pseudospherical reduction method, carbon nanotubes, Tzitzeica surface, negative Gaussian curvature

Abstract

Soft robotics is a class of hard and soft robots that contain a rigid internal structure and nonrigid body parts. The elastic components consist of nanostructured materials which exhibit new features such as the echoes reflected from skin and surrounding components, the autonomy of power, audio and video sensing, visionary capabilities of self-repair and the capacity to carry large loads for a desired mission. In this paper, we try to find a class of constitutive laws of soft-bodied robots by using the pseudospherical reduction approach which associates to the governing equations a pseudospherical surface with negative Gaussian curvature. The pseudospherical surface permits to manipulate the Gaussian curvature and therefore to obtain a maximum tensile strength for nanostructures made from carbon nanotubes. The aim of the article is to develop constitutive laws for a class of nanoropes based on carbon nanotubes with adjustable mechanical properties in order to match the compliance of natural tissues without advanced feedback control.

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Published

2017-03-05

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