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2006

Faculty of Engineering - Papers (Archive)

Conducting

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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Viscoelastic Study Of Conducting Polymers Using Quartz Crystal Microbalance, Mehrdad Bahrami Samani, Philip G. Whitten, Geoffrey M. Spinks, Christopher David Cook Jan 2006

Viscoelastic Study Of Conducting Polymers Using Quartz Crystal Microbalance, Mehrdad Bahrami Samani, Philip G. Whitten, Geoffrey M. Spinks, Christopher David Cook

Faculty of Engineering - Papers (Archive)

Application of conducting polymers has been growing widely in different fields such as batteries, solar cells, capacitors and actuators. Mechanical properties of conducting polymers like flexibility, high power to mass ratio and high active strain make them potentially applicable to robotic and automation industries. Obviously, a dynamic model of the actuation phenomenon in conducting polymers is needed to study its controllability and also to optimize the mechanical performance. De Rossi and colleagues suggest treating the mechanical behaviour of conducting polymers separately from the viscoelastic structural model and electrochemical actuation[1]. But it has been observed that the effects of electrochemical actuation …


A Robotic Gripper Based On Conducting Polymer Actuators, Gursel Alici, Nam N. Huynh Jan 2006

A Robotic Gripper Based On Conducting Polymer Actuators, Gursel Alici, Nam N. Huynh

Faculty of Engineering - Papers (Archive)

Conducting polymer actuators or as widely known as artificial muscles have many promising features such as being biocompatible and suitable to open loop control, and having high force to weight ratio. If properly engineered, they can be employed as actuators plus joints like active flexure joints articulating monolithic structures. Such structures or systems not containing any sliding and/or rolling components potentially have high positioning accuracy, which is crucial for micro/nano manipulation applications. In this paper, we employ a bending type polymer actuator to articulate two separate rigid links made up of carbon fibre such that a two-finger gripper is formed. …


Towards Improving Positioning Accuracy Of Conducting Polymer Actuators, Gursel Alici, Nam N. Huynh Jan 2006

Towards Improving Positioning Accuracy Of Conducting Polymer Actuators, Gursel Alici, Nam N. Huynh

Faculty of Engineering - Papers (Archive)

Recently, there have been significant developments in conducting polymers, particularly in their synthesis and use as electromechanical actuators. This is mainly due to their many promising features including biocompatibility, high force to weight ratio, suitability to open loop control. On the other hand, they suffer from nonlinear problems such as hysteresis and creep. With this in mind, it is the aim of this study to evaluate the existence level of these nonlinearities and their mathematical modeling in order to improve the positioning accuracy of conducting polymer actuators. The polymer actuator considered in this study which has a symmetrical structure can …