Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2021
26th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
Design and characterization of a compact actuator composed by SMA micro-springs
Submission Author:
José Fernando de Morais Firmino , PB
Co-Authors:
José Fernando de Morais Firmino, Cícero da Rocha Souto, andre silva
Presenter: José Fernando de Morais Firmino
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2021.COB2021-1044
Abstract
In this paper it is presented the development and characterization of a movement mechanism composed by M12 shape memory alloy micro-springs, for application purposes in rehabilitation engineering field. It was designed to allow the movements of a given robotic finger, using two antagonistic pairs of SMA springs. This device was characterized in terms of maximum force, operation temperature and displacement. Was used, to characterize the force, a fixed load cell, type K thermocouples and a thin polyamide wire to connect the mechanism to the transducer. A webcam, in conjunction with the same thermocouples, was used to capture images of the free movement produced by the mechanism and such captures were processed by an algorithm, which determined the generated displacements. The obtained results demonstrate that the conceived mechanism was able to generate, approximately, 1.48 N of force, 99.6° of angular and 13.9 mm of linear displacement, reaching a temperature of 58.53 °C with its activation. Considering those results, an encouraging path can be observed for the application of the developed device in upper limbs bioinspired prototypes, since this kind of apparatus demand small actuators capable to describe good angular displacement and generate moderate forces.
Keywords
Compact actuators, SMA micro-springs, Experimental Characterization, Rehabilitation engineering
