| 1. |
- Chen, Mo, et al.
(author)
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Study on Efficient Fused Deposition Modelling of Thermoplastic Polyurethane Inflatable Wall Features for Airtightness
- 2020
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In: Swedish Production Symposium 2020.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) material is an elastomer that canbe used for inflatable products. Fused deposition modelling (FDM) is a widelyused additive manufacturing process for TPU material due to the capability ofgenerating complex structures with low cost. However, TPU is soft and thusdifficult to be extruded as continuously and uniformly as hard materials such aspolylactide by FDM. Inappropriate extruder structure and speed settings can leadto filament buckling problem, resulting in poor material filling quality, longprinting time and low printing success rate. This paper aims at improving the FDMprinting efficiency of TPU inflatable products by adding lateral support to thefilament and finding out the appropriate speed ranges for different wall featuresand thicknesses. Firstly, a filament guide sheet is designed as being inserted intothe gap between the drive gears and the bottom frame of the gear chamber in orderto prevent the soft TPU filament from buckling. Secondly, inflatable product wallfeatures are classified into floors, roofs and sidewalls and experiment for findingthe relationship between printing speed and airtightness is carried out. In order toverify the proposed solution, wall features are printed and the material fillingsobtained under different printing speeds are compared by measuring theairtightness of the wall features. Results show that the proposed filament guidesheet mitigates filament buckling, and the speed range that meets the airtightnessrequirement can be found for various wall features and thicknesses. In summary,the sealing of the filament feeding channel between the drive gears and the nozzle,as well as the speed optimisation according to product features, are essential forthe efficient printing of TPU inflatable products.
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| 2. |
- Ji, Qinglei, et al.
(author)
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Design and closed loop control of a 3D printed soft actuator
- 2020
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In: 2020 16th IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE). - : IEEE. ; , s. 842-848
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Soft robots, made of soft materials such as di-electric elastomer or shape memory polymers, have receivedtremendous attentions due to its dexterousness, flexibility andsafety compared with rigid robots. However, wider applicationof soft robots is limited due to their complex fabrication processand poor controllability. Here, we introduce a closed loopcontrolled soft actuator that is fully 3D printed with flexiblematerial. The structure of the soft actuator is optimized withFinite Element Method (FEM) to acquire shortest fabricationtime and highest deformation for same stimulus input. A desk-top Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printer is used forlow-cost fabrication of such actuators. A webcamera is used forthe image feedback which offers the real time shape monitoringof the soft actuator. An output feedback Proportional IntegralDerivative (PID) controller with lowpass filter is developed withpole placement design method based on a data-driven modelof the 3D printed soft actuator. The controller is implementedto regulate the input air pressure to ensure a fast-response, precise and robust shape changing for any work environments.
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| 3. |
- Ji, Qinglei, et al.
(author)
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Feedback control for the precise shape morphing of 4D printed shape memory polymer
- 2021
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In: IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics. - : IEEE. - 0278-0046 .- 1557-9948. ; , s. 12698-12707
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Four-dimensional printing (4DP) is a newly emerged technology that uses smart materials for additive manufacturing and thus enables shape and/or property change upon stimulus after the printing process. Present study on 4DP has been focused on open loop stimulus, which can hardly ensure high shape precision and predictable final states. In this paper, a new closed loop 4DP (CL4DP) process supplementing 4D printed actuation with closed loop control methods is proposed. Image feedback is used for enhancing the conventional open loop 4DP morphing process and a controller is implemented to regulate the intensity of the stimulus accordingly in real-time. To achieve precise control, a nonlinear affine system model is built by model identification with measurement data to describe the dynamic shape recovery process of the 4D printed Shape Memory Polymer (SMP). Precise shape control is achieved and the effects of controller parameters on the precision of CL4DP are studied. Traditionally, SMP has a discrete number of selected steady states. With CL4DP, such steady states can be continuous and arbitrary.
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