Structure Design And Simulation Of Soft Robotic Fish

The bionic fish,which combines the swimming mechanism and robot technology,provides a new idea for the research of a new type of underwater thruster.It has extremely important scientific and technological value and broad application prospects.Electroactive Polymer(EAP)has the advantages of fast response speed,large strain,no noise,high energy density ratio and excellent environmental adaptability.It is widely used in the research of biomimetic fish.In this paper,the EAP material driver is used as the driving source of biomimetic fish,and a flexible mechanical biomimetic fish is designed.The main research content of this paper is as follows:(1)Design and manufacture of EAP film stretching device and cylindrical EAP driver.A device for biaxial asymmetric stretching of EAP films is designed based on the material properties of EAP and the proportion requirements of prestretching,and its structural design is described in detail.It has been proved by experiments that the device shows a good prestretching effect in EAP films with a thickness of 1mm.Finally,a cylindrical EAP driver is prepared from the prestretched EAP film,and the preparation process is described in detail.(2)Control and performance analysis of cylindrical EAP driver.Starting with the factors influencing the driver output performance of spring specifications,EAP film layer,the amount of spring compression,EAP film stretching rate,and electrode area to analyze the influence law of drive performance,the cylindrical EAP drive to determine the optimal design parameters,and summarize the reasons of drive failure during the experiment.(3)Simulation and analysis of the driver.The corresponding constitutive model is derived based on the initial study of EAP material properties,The simplified cylindrical EAP driver model is simulated and analyzed by ABAQUS.The changes in the internal stress of EAP film are studied under the action of electric excitation,and the cylindrical EAP driver is further improved based on the simulation results.According to the output requirements of the driver and the principle of the electric actuation,the control system of the cylindrical EAP driver is designed,which lays the foundation for the he subsequent control of the flexible mechanical biomimetic fish.(4)The structural design and CFD simulation of flexible mechanical biomimetic fish.The structural design of the head,body,and tail of the flexible mechanical biomimetic fish depends on the theory of fish swimming mode.According to the simulation results,CFD software is used to analyze the fluid dynamics of the biomimetic fish and it is concluded that the tail swing of the flexible mechanical biomimetic fish could produce periodic propulsion force.In summary,this paper conducts experimental tests and simulation analysis on the cylindrical EAP driver made of EAP material.The structure of bionic fish is designed in combination with the swimming mechanism of fish,and the analysis concludes that it can generate periodic propulsion force on this basis,which provides theoretical support for the research and preparation of flexible mechanical bionic fish.