Publications related to Pneumatics

Increasing the Energy Efficiency of Gas Boosters for Hydrogen Storage and for Refueling Stations

A new electrically driven gas booster is described as an alternative to the classical air-driven gas boosters known for their poor energetic efficiency. These boosters are used in small scale Hydrogen storage facilities and in refueling stations for Hydrog ...

MDPI2023

Leveraging the Snap Buckling of Bistable Magnetic Shells to Design a Refreshable Braille Dot

Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida Reis, Arefeh Abbasi, Tian Chen, Bastien Freddy Gustave Aymon

A design concept is proposed for the building block, a dot, of programmable braille readers utilizing bistable shell buckling, magnetic actuation, and pneumatic loading. The design process is guided by Finite Element simulations, which are initially valida ...

Wiley2023

Friction Induces Anisotropic Propulsion in Sliding Magnetic Microtriangles

Ignacio Pagonabarraga Mora

In viscous fluids, motile microentities such as bacteria or artificial swimmers often display different transport modes than macroscopic ones. A current challenge in the field aims at using friction asymmetry to steer the motion of microscopic particles. H ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2022

Closed-Loop Position Control of a Self-Sensing 3-DoF Origami Module With Pneumatic Actuators

Jamie Paik, Mustafa Mete

This letter presents closed-loop position control of a pneumatically actuated modular robotic platform "pneumagami" that can be stacked to enlarge work and design space for wearable applications. The module is a 3 degrees of freedom (DoF) parallel robot wi ...

2021

Shape programmable multi-stable polymer actuators

Bekir Aksoy

Recent advances in soft actuators have enabled systems that are safer to interact with, better at handling fragile objects, able to produce complex shapes with fewer components. However, being inherently soft differs these actuators from their rigid counte ...

EPFL2021

Flow Path Optimization for Soft Pneumatic Actuators: Towards Optimal Performance and Portability

Jamie Paik, Harshal Arun Sonar, Sagar Dattatray Joshi

Soft pneumatic actuators (SPAs) are highly desirable for interactive robotics applications owing to their unconventional properties like high compliance, safe human-machine interaction and adaptable design space. The SPA dynamic behaviour is governed by pn ...

IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC2021

A High Efficiency Pneumatic Drive System Using Vane-Type Semi-Rotary Actuators

Alfred Rufer

A compressed air driven generator is proposed, where the pneumatic energy is converted into mechanical energy using two vane-type rotational actuators. The use of a second actuator with a higher displacement in order to produce a thermodynamic expansion al ...

UNIV NIS2021

Pneumatic supply system parameter optimization for soft actuators

Jamie Paik, Sagar Dattatray Joshi

Soft actuators using pressurized air are being widely used due to their inherent compliance, conformability and customizability. These actuators are powered and controlled by pneumatic supply systems (PSSs) consisting of components such as compressors, val ...

2021

Design of structures that adapt to loads through large shape changes

Ian Smith, Gennaro Senatore, Arka Prabhata Reksowardojo

Adaptive structures can modify their geometry and internal forces through sensing and mechanical actuation in order to maintain optimal performance under changing actions. Previous work has shown that well-conceived adaptive design strategies achieve subst ...

2020

Manufacturing and Tests of a Tubular Multilayer Dielectric Elastomer Actuator for an Impedance Pump

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Thomas Guillaume Martinez, Francesco Clavica, Armando Matthieu Walter, Jonathan André Jean-Marie Chavanne, David Moser

During the last three decades, the field of electro active polymers (EAP) has seen a rapidly growing interest worldwide. These materials can exhibit many advantages, such as elasticity, high energy density, high dynamics and are often nicknamed artificial ...

2020

Single chamber multiple degree-of-freedom soft pneumatic actuator enabled by adjustable stiffness layers

Jamie Paik, Marco Salerno, Sébastien Douglas de Rivaz, Junius Santoso

Soft pneumatic actuators promise simple, adaptable, and safe manipulation, but the nature of pneumatic circuits limits the scalability of this approach. This paper introduces a method to augment the degrees-of-freedom of soft pneumatic actuators without in ...

2019

Programmable Aerodynamic Drag on Active Dimpled Cylinders

Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida Reis, Dong Yan, Mark Andrew Guttag

This study demonstrates that the aerodynamic drag profile of a patterned deformable cylinder at high Reynolds numbers can be programmed, on demand, by modifying its topography through pneumatic actuation. The samples used in the experiments comprise a rigi ...

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH2019

Device having a plurality of latching micro-actuators and method of operating the same

Herbert Shea, Samuel Rosset, Nadine Besse, Juan José Zarate

An actuator device including a plurality of transducer actuators, and a common pneumatic actuation mechanism for shaping the plurality of transducer actuators, wherein each actuator of the plurality of transducer actuators includes a shape memory polymer m ...

2018

Series Elastic Actuation for Assistive Orthotic Devices: Case Study of Pneumatic Actuator

Hannes Bleuler, Mohamed Bouri, Jonathan Olivier, Amalric Louis Ortlieb

Wearable assistive robotics is a modern field where intelligent actuated systems work in collaboration with the body to replace a lost limb, to enhance performances (e.g. carrying load, walking, running, jumping) or to train or rehabilitate specific activi ...

Springer-Verlag Berlin2016

Soft Pneumatic Actuator with Adjustable Stiffness Layers for Multi-DoF Actuation

Jamie Paik, Amir Firouzeh, Marco Salerno

The soft pneumatic actuators (SPAs) are a solution toward the highly customizable and light actuators with the versatility of actuation modes, and an inherent compliance. Such flexibility allows SPAs to be considered as alternative actuators for wearable r ...

2015

Fluid Flow Analysis of a New Finned Piston Reciprocating Compressor Using Pneumatic Analogy

Alfred Rufer, Mahbod Heidari

The goal of this paper is to investigate the fluid flow analysis in a novel multilayered finned reciprocating compressor, adopting a so-called “pneumatic-Electric” analogy using a lumped methodology. This machine includes two sets of concentric annular fin ...

2014

Fluid Flow Analysis of a New Finned Piston Reciprocating Compressor Using Pneumatic Analogy

Alfred Rufer, Mahbod Heidari

The goal of this paper is to investigate the fluid flow analysis in a novel multilayered finned reciprocating compressor, adopting a so-called “pneumatic-Electric” analogy using a lumped methodology. This machine includes two sets of concentric annular fin ...

2014

Characterization of Silicone Rubber Based Soft Pneumatic Actuators

Jamie Paik, Yi Sun, Yun Seong Song

Conventional pneumatic actuators have been a popular choice due to their decent force/torque output. Nowadays, new generation of pneumatic actuator made out of highly compliant elastomers, which we call soft pneumatic actuators (SPA), are drawing increasin ...

Ieee2013

Review of dynamic testing methods and results of rock materials in tension

Qianbing Zhang

The purpose of this review is to discuss the development and the state-of-the-art in dynamic testing methods and dynamic behaviour of rock materials in tension. Loading techniques commonly used for intermediate and high strain rate testing are pneumatic-hy ...

CRC Press2013

Elastomer based tunable optofluidic devices

Demetri Psaltis, Andreas Vasdekis, Wuzhou Song

The synergetic integration of photonics and microfluidics has enabled a wide range of optofluidic devices that can be tuned based on various physical mechanisms. One such tuning mechanism can be realized based on the elasticity of polydimethylsiloxane (PDM ...

Royal Society of Chemistry2012