Soft actuator using thin film plasticized PVC gel by 3D printing

摘要

Soft actuators based on stimuli responsive polymers are expected to be used for drivingwearable robots which is required in a wide range of fields such as medical,care and welfare,because they are light weight,flexible and quiet.One of useful materials for soft actuator isplasticized PVC gel.A plasticized PVC gel is known to deform by applying a relatively lowvoltage (~ 400 V) and high driving stability in the atmosphere.A plasticized PVC gel is deformto aggregate on anode surface due to applying a voltage.Considering its deformation behaviorthe a multi-layered PVC gel actuator was developed using a metal mesh as the anode electrodeand a metal foil as the cathode electrode,and a plasticized PVC gel sheet of 200m insertedbetween each electrode.Although the stacked actuator has high performance,since the metalelectrode is used,the flexibility of the actuator itself is low and the weight tends to be heavy.The amount of deformation depends on the voltage,and if we use thin film gel and stacked,alarger shrinkage rate can be obtained.However,thin film gel is very difficult to handle.Tofabricate a more flexible and high performance multilayered PVC gel actuator,in this study,we focused on 3D printing technology and examined the automation of fabricating the thin filmstacked PVC gel actuators using a 3D printing system equipped with a gel ink.