Actuating Analysis for a Multi-chamber Pneumatic Actuator

This paper presents a pneumatic rubber microactuator which can be used in many fields such as the miniature endoscope inspection, the pipe inspection etc.. The actuating performance was analyzed using ANSYS. The results showed that the maximum stress was not on the position where the dimension mutated. And the end surface rotation angle was increasing linearly while the applied pressure was augmented. When the pressure applied in one chamber of the pneumatic the end surface rotation was different with different position analyzed. Generally the pneumatic with thicker wall will rotate less when the position analyzed is on the boundary line of the chamber cavum and the Y-wall. The end surface rotation was also affected with the pneumatic axial length. The rotation angle with less rubber length lays the maximum at all the load. The rotation trend is increasing as the increasing of the tension in the axial direction. And this leaded the larger angle of the less length pneumatic in all the applied pressure loads.