Application of a contraction type PVC gel actuator to brakes

A poly vinyl chloride (PVC) gel actuator shows great potential because of such positive characteristics as movement in the air, large deformation, and being lightweight. We have proposed a structure of a contraction type actuator. The PVC gel actuator is constructed by the plasticized PVC and mesh type electrodes. In this study, we propose an application of PVC gel actuator to negative actuated brakes called polymer brakes. We made an experimental apparatus which consisted of a motor with an encoder, a torque sensor and a polymer brake. The PVC gel actuator was installed under a brake pad to construct the polymer brake. We measured the characteristics of the polymer brake using the experimental apparatus. The followings are the results that we found from the experiments. Firstly, the brake torque is about 40mNm, the response rate is about 0.1s, the characteristics do not change during the operation. Finally, we showed that the proposed brake works well for small motors.