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Rapid, Energy-saving Bioinspired Soft Switching Valve Embedded in Snapping Membrane Actuator

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Abstract

In nature, organisms widely use the interaction of muscle contraction and biological pipelines to form an efficient fluid control mechanism. Herein, a pneumatically powered, Bioinspired Soft Switching valve (BSS valve) with short response time and low-energy consumption is described. The BSS valve is composed of flexible walls, a flexible tube and symmetrically arranged Snapping Membrane actuator (SM actuator). It functions based on tube deformation throttling caused by instability of SM actuator membrane. To realize rapid preparation of customized BSS valve, the modular manufacturing method suitable for different materials and structures based on 3D printing and mold forming was developed. Using the membrane flip rate as indicators, the displacement transient response characteristics of three structures actuators were studied, The results proved that spherical and spherical cap membrane SM actuator achieved rapid displacement response under the low critical pressure threshold. Furthermore, with critical buckling pressure and capacity utilization efficiency as indicators, we analyzed the characteristics of SM actuators with different radius and wall thickness to obtain reasonable structural parameters configuration of SM actuators. The influence of radius and thickness on SM actuator is revealed, and theoretical model formulas were formed. Two different configurations are presented. (1) Customized BSS valve structures can achieve sequential motion of flexible gripper. (2) BSS valve embedded in soft pump. The performance tests confirmed it has significant advantages in energy consumption, specific pressure, specific flow, high-frequency cycle load life, and valve can be integrated into the soft pump fluid system as a throttling unit, and provides an idea for fluid drive control integration.

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The data and materials that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 52075216, 91948302, and 91848204).

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Author notes

  1. Fangzhou Zhao and Yingjie Wang contributed equally.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, 130022, China

    Fangzhou Zhao, Yingjie Wang, Sijia Liu, Miao Jin & Chunbao Liu

  2. Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering, Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun, 130022, China

    Fangzhou Zhao, Yingjie Wang, Sijia Liu, Miao Jin, Luquan Ren, Lei Ren & Chunbao Liu

  3. School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

    Lei Ren

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  1. Fangzhou Zhao
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Contributions

RL and LCB were involved in conceptualization; ZFZ, WYJ, LSJ and JM were involved in writing—original draft, formal analysis, and visualization; LCB helped in writing—review and editing; and RLQ contributed to supervision. ZFZ and WYJ are contributed equally to this work.

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Correspondence to Lei Ren or Chunbao Liu.

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Zhao, F., Wang, Y., Liu, S. et al. Rapid, Energy-saving Bioinspired Soft Switching Valve Embedded in Snapping Membrane Actuator. J Bionic Eng 20, 225–236 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42235-022-00258-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42235-022-00258-1

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