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A Comprehensive Analytical Model and Experimental Validation of Z-shaped Electrothermal Microactuators

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Recent Advances in Mechanism Design for Robotics

Part of the book series: Mechanisms and Machine Science ((Mechan. Machine Science,volume 33))

Abstract

This paper presents a comprehensive analytical model for a Z-shaped electrothermal microactuator operating in air condition. The model provides the estimate of the tip displacement of the microactuator directly based on a voltage difference applied on the both anchors of the actuator. In an attempt to improve the accuracy of modeling, the impact of the shuttle and multiple pairs of beams are included in the model. The numerical simulations with a Finite Element (FE) model are conducted using the commercialized FE software ANSYS to verify the analytical model. The experimental testing is performed as well to validate the analytical model. The analytical results based on the proposed model agree well with both the FE modeling and experimental results.

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Acknowledgments

The work was partially supported by National Science Foundation of China (No. 51175006).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, China

    Zhuo Zhang & Yueqing Yu

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

    Weize Zhang, Qiyang Wu & Xinyu Liu

  3. Department of Engineering and Aarhus School of Engineering, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Xuping Zhang

Authors
  1. Zhuo Zhang
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  2. Weize Zhang
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  3. Qiyang Wu
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  4. Yueqing Yu
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  5. Xinyu Liu
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  6. Xuping Zhang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xuping Zhang .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Shaoping Bai

  2. Laboratory of Robotics & Mechatronics LARM, University of Cassino and South Latium, Cassino, Italy

    Marco Ceccarelli

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© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Zhang, Z., Zhang, W., Wu, Q., Yu, Y., Liu, X., Zhang, X. (2015). A Comprehensive Analytical Model and Experimental Validation of Z-shaped Electrothermal Microactuators. In: Bai, S., Ceccarelli, M. (eds) Recent Advances in Mechanism Design for Robotics. Mechanisms and Machine Science, vol 33. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18126-4_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18126-4_17

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-18125-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-18126-4

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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