Enhanced Design of a Soft Thin-Film Vibrotactile Actuator Based on PVC Gel

3D-printable artificial muscles have only recently garnered interest, and few 3D-printed artificial muscles have been demonstrated. In this article, we introduce the concept of thermoplastic electroactive gels, new smart materials that can be fabricated simply and rapidly by heating, overcoming the limitations of previous dangerous and time-consuming solvent-based manufacturing methods, and enabling hot-pressing, melt-recycling, extrusion and 3D-printing. We present and characterise a new example material, PVC-DIDA (polyvinyl chloride and diisodecyl adipate) gel and demonstrate multi-layer PVC-DIDA gel artificial muscles. Finally, the extrudability of PVC-DIDA gel is confirmed, and an artificial muscle made from extruded electroactive gel is presented. The electroactivity and extrudability of these thermoplastic gels highlights them as excellent candidate materials for 3D-printing artificial muscle structures.

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermoplastic electroactive gels for 3D-printable artificial muscles

Helps¹,

Taghavi²,

Rossiter

2019

“…As the specifications of the existing wire mesh are incomplete and the manufacturing process in laboratory is complex, Helps et al [44,45] presented a different design for PVC gel actuators, using copper foil anode instead of stainless mesh anode, in which the creeping space previously provided by the mesh is instead embodied on the PVC gel itself. K. H. Park et al [46][47][48][49] prepared a vibrotactile actuator based on wave-shaped PVC gel by casting method and applied it to wearable devices. Motohashi et al [50] prepared a kind of PVC gel by pressing the gel using heated iron plates and applied it to a peristaltic micropump.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic braille display based on surface-structured PVC gel

Tian,

Yu,

et al. 2024

Braille displays are a class of human-computer interaction electromechanical devices that display dynamic braille through an array of actuators. However, existing actuators for braille displays suffer from issues such as bulky size, heavy weight, and small tactile displacement, leading to difficulties in improving their resolution and readability. To address the above issues, we developed a novel electroactive artificial muscle actuator and applied it to braille displays. The novel actuator consists of a surface-structured PVC gel and planar electrodes. To investigate the effect of surface structure on the performance of novel PVC gel actuators, four types of surface-structured PVC gels were fabricated by a casting process, and their actuation performance was tested. The results show that the conical and frustum conical array structures are more favorable for improving the displacement of novel PVC gel actuators, while the cylindrical and quadrangular array structures are more favorable for improving their recovery forces. We observed both surface structure and dynamic electrical actuation, suggesting that the actuation of the novel actuator is mainly caused by the deformation of the surface structure of the array. We also analyzed electrowetting effects in PVC gels using the Lippmann-Young equation, to explain the differences in the performance of surface-structured PVC gels with different contact angles. Moreover, six multilayer actuators composed of PVC gels with a conical surface array structure are applied to the braille display unit to display the braille digits from 0 to 9. It has been shown that the novel PVC gel actuator has excellent mechanical properties, which makes it an ideal solution for braille displays.

“…An electroactive gel can be one of the best candidate materials for fabricating a soft haptic module with a simple fabrication process [21][22][23][24][25]. A poly vinyl chloride (PVC) gel (or plasticized PVC gel), which is one of the representative electroactive gels, is usually fabricated by mixing PVC and a plasticizer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Owing to this characteristic, a PVC gel does not require any soft and stretchable electrodes, unlike the conventional dielectric electroactive polymers, and furthermore, it can be used for fabricating soft and thin haptic I/O modules. Previously, PVC gel-based haptic actuators were fabricated by sandwiching a wave-shaped PVC gel between two parallel electrodes [22][23][24][25]. In this paper, we present a new thin, soft, and single-volume self-sensing haptic actuation I/O module (we called it bidirectional single-volume haptic I/O module) that not only senses haptic force/pressure but also creates haptic sensation without any stretchable electrodes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soft bidirectional haptic I/O module based on bi-convex patterned PVC gel

Choi¹,

Jeong²,

Lee³

et al. 2021

Self Cite

In this paper, we propose a bidirectional soft haptic I/O module that not only senses the haptic force but also generates a mechanical vibrotactile sensation. Under external pressure, the distance between the moving plate and lower electrode layer decreases, and the bi-convex patterned poly vinyl chloride (bpPVC) gel gets compressed. These two motions make the capacitance of the proposed module change. Moreover, the application of external electric field (EF) creates an electrostatic force between the upper and lower electrode layers and generates the electric-field-induced deformation of the bpPVC gel simultaneously. As soon as the external EF disappears, the proposed module regains its original shape through the elastic restoring forces of the bpPVC gel and planar springs. Therefore, the applied AC voltage makes the proposed module vibrate. The dielectric and mechanical properties of the bpPVC gel are measured to investigate the optimal weight ratio of the PVC and plasticizers. Experiments are conducted to measure the haptic sensing and actuating performance of the proposed method. The capacitance of the proposed haptic I/O module increases from 17.4 pF to 54.8 pF when the external pressure varied from 0 kPa to 100 kPa. On the other hand, the haptic output of the proposed I/O module is observed as 0.81g (g = 9.8 m s−2) at 100 Hz. The results clearly indicate that the proposed haptic I/O module not only senses the static and dynamic pressure but also controls the amplitude of vibrotactile sensation. Owing to its mechanically soft structure, we expect that the proposed haptic I/O module has the potential to be applied or attached to various flexible/soft devices or the human body.