Chemo-mechanical actuators

These environmentally sensitive gels are being extensively studied and applied to a variety of fields in medical science, engineering, ecology, food science, drug delivery systems, chemo-mechanical and electro-mechanical actuators, switching devices, molecular sieves, chemical re-collecting retainers, and so on. These aspects are not covered in this issue. The reader may consult some of the references [1,8]. 

Lim SH, Raorane D, Satyanarayana S, Majumdar A et al. (2006) Nano-chemo-mechanical sensor array platform for high-throughput Chem. analysis. Sens. Actuators B Chem. 1119 466-474. 

It is critical to precisely control the force and/or displacement output of conjugated polymer actuators in many of their intended applications such as manipulation of single cells and micro-surgical operations. However, the sophisticated electro-chemo-mechanical dynamics presents a challenge to the control design. In addition, the actuation behaviors of conjugated polymer actuators is strongly dependent on the fabrication process and... 

Secondly, conjugated polymers were studied as biomimetic artificial muscles. A scalable physics based electro-chemo-mechanical model was developed to connect an input voltage to bending of the material. The reduced version of the model was used to design a robust adaptive controller. Also, a nonlinear mechanical model was investigated. Furthermore, a torsional actuator was developed by depositing PPy on a tube substrate with helically wound platinum fibers. A set of experiments were conducted to confirm the torsional and other actuation modes as well as the model. 

Oh IK, Jung JH, Jeon JH et al (2010) Electro-chemo-mechanical characteristics of fidlerene-reinforced ionic polymer-metal composite transducers. Smart Mater Stmct 19(7) 075009 Palmre V, Brandell D, Maeorg U et al (2009) Nanoporous carbon-based electrodes for high strain ionomeric bending actuators. Smart Mater Stmct 18(9) 095028 Palmre V, Lust E, Janes A et al (2011) Electroactive polymer actuators with carbon aerogel electrodes. J Mater 21 2577-2583... 

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