Authors:

Justin Rodriguez

Date Created:

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About Paper:

In In the natural world, entities morph their shape to facilitate their function, such as capturing sunlight or avoiding danger or damage. Recreating this shape-morphing capability in technological systems creates opportunities for advanced clothing and adaptable optical and acoustic devices. The primary objective of this work is to develop a paper-thin large-scale array of thermal actuators, which are among the most powerful and reliable actuators. The key challenge is enabling selective and independent control of a large number of actuating pixels while minimizing the complexity of the control system. To address this, we propose implementing matrix addressing techniques to control the actuator arrays. Matrix addressing of thermal actuators requires the local generation of thermal energy by the conduction of electricity in a high-resistance material. Constructing a thermal array involves three key materials: electrodes with high electrical conductivity and current-carrying capacity, a resistive layer with significantly higher resistance to minimize electrical crosstalk and an active component with large thermally induced strains. The actuating composite consists of a polymer for structural integrity and paraffin wax, a low-cost material that expands when heated. The array's performance, including heat generation and response time, is evaluated through experimental measurements. The implementation of matrix addressing techniques enables precise control and coordination of individual pixels within the array. This proposed work presents new opportunities for thermal actuator arrays, offering low-profile, cost-effective, and scalable devices. By leveraging the thermal array's capabilities and the actuator material's expansive properties, targeted and efficient actuation can be achieved, improving acoustic devices.

Source:

Purdue University / 2023

Topics:

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Co-authors:

Justin Rodriguez