ABSTRACT

The article presents a method for the determination of hyper-elastic material parameters and automatic structural computation of the soft-robotic gripper. The Yeoh constitutive model is used to describe the mechanical properties of hyperelastic materials for fabricating soft fingers. Material properties are identified by using tensile experiments of the work-pieces. The Python-Abaqus/CAE script for automatic calculation of the soft-finger is developed. The proposed method allows estimating the effect of geometric parameters on gripper curvature quickly and smoothly. The similarity between soft finger bending angles obtained by simulation and experiment demonstrates the correctness of the found material parameters and the developed program. The research results play a meaningful role in the optimization design of soft gripper.

Keywords: Soft-robotic gripper, hypere-lastic material, automatic computation, Python Script, Abaqus/CAE.