Study of the Motion Behavior of Soft Fiber Reinforced Actuators Based on Fiber Angle

The increasing tendency to soft robots in various applications justifies the reason for studying the behavior of such actuators. The present study investigates the effect of fiber angle on the motion behavior of elastomeric fiber-reinforced actuators with two circular and semicircular sections. Unlike previous researches, this study takes into account the elastomer material used in actuator construction. Furthermore, unlike previous researches in which phase angle variation was studied just in linear actuators, phase angle variation in linear-twisting actuators is also considered. The simulation results showed that the phase change angle is 54.2° in silicone linear actuator and 30° in linear-twisting silicon actuator. The results also showed that the maximum bending in the semi-cylindrical bending actuators occurs at a 90-degree angle of twisting fibers. To verify this behavior, experiments were done. Silicone linear actuators were made with four different fiber angles including 30, 54.2, 54.3, 75, and 85 degrees. Moreover, Linear-twisting actuators were made with two different fiber angles including 30, 55, 65, and 85 degrees clockwise and 45 degrees counterclockwise. At last, one bending actuator with fibers at the angle of 88 degrees was made. All these actuators were evaluated after actuation. The experimental results confirmed the simulation results with a maximum calculated error of 14%.