EXPERIMENTAL PLATFORM FOR CHARACTERIZING A NYLON THREAD THERMOMECHANICAL ACTUATOR
Abstract
The present work has as objective to develop and execute the project of an experimental platform to obtain the electro thermomechanical responses of a class of actuators based on nylon shing lines. The methodologies used for the hardware and software development were the Model-Based Design, automatic code generation, and the V Model methodology. The tests for validating the platform demonstrated a capacity of a 120 mm in length and 1 mm diameter actuator perform work and lift a load of 150 g, contracting up to 15.2 mm (12:67%), and to generate a force of up to 2.36 N, when submitted to a temperature of 156.4 C in response to an input signal of electric current of average value of 6.6 A controlled by PWM that owed through a 0.8 mm diameter copper wire wrapped on the actuator.