A soft aquatic actuator for unsteady peak power amplification
A soft aquatic actuator for unsteady peak power amplification
A soft hydraulic actuator is presented which uses elastic energy storage for the purpose of pulsed-jet propulsion of soft unmanned underwater vehicles. The actuator consists of a flexible membrane which can be inflated using a micro-pump and whose elastic potential energy may be released on demand using a controllable valve, in a manner inspired by the swimming of squids and octopuses. It is shown that for equivalent initial elastic energy, the drop in peak thrust is linearly proportional to the decrease in nozzle cross section. Peak hydraulic power amplification of the soft actuator of approximately 75% is achieved with respect to that of the driving pump, confirming that passive elasticity can be exploited in aquatic propulsion to replicate the explosive motion skills of agile sea-dwelling creatures.
Giorgio-Serchi, Francesco
8571dc14-19c1-4ed1-8080-d380736a6ffa
Lidtke, Artur
bf66183c-1c9c-41f3-a68d-9d65f94fda2c
Weymouth, Gabriel
b0c85fda-dfed-44da-8cc4-9e0cc88e2ca0
Giorgio-Serchi, Francesco
8571dc14-19c1-4ed1-8080-d380736a6ffa
Lidtke, Artur
bf66183c-1c9c-41f3-a68d-9d65f94fda2c
Weymouth, Gabriel
b0c85fda-dfed-44da-8cc4-9e0cc88e2ca0
Giorgio-Serchi, Francesco, Lidtke, Artur and Weymouth, Gabriel
(2018)
A soft aquatic actuator for unsteady peak power amplification.
IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics.
(doi:10.1109/TMECH.2018.2873253).
Abstract
A soft hydraulic actuator is presented which uses elastic energy storage for the purpose of pulsed-jet propulsion of soft unmanned underwater vehicles. The actuator consists of a flexible membrane which can be inflated using a micro-pump and whose elastic potential energy may be released on demand using a controllable valve, in a manner inspired by the swimming of squids and octopuses. It is shown that for equivalent initial elastic energy, the drop in peak thrust is linearly proportional to the decrease in nozzle cross section. Peak hydraulic power amplification of the soft actuator of approximately 75% is achieved with respect to that of the driving pump, confirming that passive elasticity can be exploited in aquatic propulsion to replicate the explosive motion skills of agile sea-dwelling creatures.
Text
SerchiLidtkeWeymouth2018_preprint
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 14 September 2018
e-pub ahead of print date: October 2018
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 423854
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/423854
ISSN: 1083-4435
PURE UUID: 38906dd7-a8f1-435a-bc8d-e00756b61f4c
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Date deposited: 03 Oct 2018 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 04:15
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Author:
Francesco Giorgio-Serchi
Author:
Artur Lidtke
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