Study on the performance of pneumatic planar bending flexible joint with different boundary conditions

摘要

In this paper, we develop a new type planar bending flexible joint adopting rubber tube and elastic constraint components. When supplied the air pressure, the joint can elongate in axial direction or bend arbitrarily in the planar. Experiments study on contrast of mechanical character of planar bending flexible joint in different restrained conditions are done on the static experimental device, and the influence of the structure of constraints ring on the elongation and the bending angle of the joint. The experiments show that the deformation of the joint with arc-shaped restraints ring significantly larger than the joint with cylindrical-shaped restraints ring.