IPMC Artificial Muscle Fabricating, Improving And Modeling

The thesis has firstly studied IPMC(Ionic Polymer Metal Composote) artificial muscle surface electrode chemical depositing technology, and concluded a kind of IPMC surface resistance chemical depositing precise process after trial and error,at the same time,IPMC actuator sample has been effectively manufactured using commercial Nafion membrane. A detailed introduction of the improved IPMC actuator experimental testing apparatus has been given in this thesis, IPMC actuator genrative tip force and displacement can be tested by this equipment.Secondly, To improve IPMC actuator output force efficiently, Nafion solution casting technique has been studied, Nafion polymer solution casting process has also been concluded after experiments, The different thickness Nafion membranes were cast using Nafion polymer solution casting technique, the elasticity modulus and hardness of the cast Nafion and commercial Nafion films were tested by Nano Indenter respectively,the result shows, elasticity modulus and hardness of the cast Nafion film is about two times than commercial Nafion film. IPMC actuator was also fabricated by different thickness cast membranes, the output force and displacement was acquired by IPMC experimental testing apparatus, It has been found that ,as the thickness increases ,the output tip force of IPMC actuator can be improved, but the generative displacement declined.In the mean time,To improve IPMC actuator output force and extend its working time in the air, chemical improving of IPMC starting material(Nafion) has been researched to improve the Nafion film water uptake , The TEOS and POMS chemcial treating has been processed respectively in our experiment, and then the IPMC actuator has been successfully manufactrued using chemical treated Nafion membranes, the generative output force has also been tested, It has been found that the IPMC actuator fabricated with chemical treated film can generate a bit bigger force than the IPMC actuator fabricated with commercial film, and also the IPMC actuator can extend its woring time in air.At last,according to the actuating mechanism of the IPMC artificial mucle, the acutuating model of IPMC actuator has been established ,and IPMC actuator parameterized design interface was developed based on AutoCAD platform. Additionaly,the IPMC actuator generated force and displacement has been modeled through matlab nonlinear curve fitting and experiment, so the output force and displacement of the IPMC actuator open loop transfer function has been constructed ,which can be the fundamental for future research.