Lee Han-Joo, Guerra-Bravo Esteban, Baltazar Arturo, Loh Kenneth J
Material Science and Engineering Program, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States.
Active, Responsive, Multifunctional, and Ordered-materials Research (ARMOR) Laboratory, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States.
Front Robot AI. 2021 Sep 3;8:747440. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2021.747440. eCollection 2021.
Soft actuation through droplet evaporation has significantly improved the actuation speed of methods that utilize liquid vaporization. Instead of boiling bulk liquid, this method implements atomization to disperse small droplets into a heater. Due to the large surface area of the droplets, the liquid evaporates much faster even at small temperature changes. However, further analysis is required to maximize the performance of this complex multi-physics method. This study was conducted to provide further insight into the atomizer and how it affects actuation. Numerical simulations were used to inspect the vibration modes and determine how frequency and voltage affect the atomization process. These results were used to experimentally control the atomizer, and the droplet growth on the heater surface was analyzed to study the evaporation process. A cuboid structure was inflated with the actuator to demonstrate its performance. The results show that simply maximizing the atomization rate creates large droplets on the surface of the heater, which slows down the vaporization process. Thus, an optimal atomization rate should be determined for ideal performance.
通过液滴蒸发实现的软驱动显著提高了利用液体汽化的方法的驱动速度。该方法不是使大量液体沸腾，而是通过雾化将小液滴分散到加热器中。由于液滴的表面积很大，即使在温度变化很小的情况下，液体蒸发也会快得多。然而，需要进一步分析以最大限度地提高这种复杂多物理场方法的性能。进行这项研究是为了更深入地了解雾化器及其对驱动的影响。使用数值模拟来检查振动模式，并确定频率和电压如何影响雾化过程。这些结果被用于对雾化器进行实验控制，并分析加热器表面上液滴的生长情况以研究蒸发过程。用致动器使长方体结构膨胀以展示其性能。结果表明，简单地最大化雾化率会在加热器表面产生大液滴，这会减慢汽化过程。因此，为了实现理想性能，应确定最佳雾化率。
