Host: The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Name : [in Japanese]
Date : December 22, 2018 - December 24, 2018
The cylindrical rubber is axially reinforced by the fiber and closed by the rigid ends. When the inner pressure is applied to this fiber reinforced rubber cylinder, the diameter expands and the length shrinks. Such the cylinder can be used as the soft actuator, that is, the artificial muscle.This artificial muscle has high contractive force and amounts compared to McKibben-type artificial muscle which is used widely. However, durability of the artificial muscle is not enough for practical use. In this paper, we analyzed the rubber cylinder theoretically. Firstly, the differential equation, which is satisfied the cylinder's profile, is derived. Secondly, the solution is obtained as the closed form, when the rubber is soft enough compared to the fiber. Finally, it is found that the profile of the rubber cylinder is given by the incomplete elliptic integral, when the inner pressure is large enough.
