Meso-macro deformation investigation for biaxial knitted textile based pouch motor

A detailed knowledge of the deformation behavior of pouch motor contracting actuators (PMCA) improves their performance, and researchers are always looking for materials and structures that can increase the actuator’s performance by better controlling these deformations. In this article, a novel PMCA is fabricated using three-dimensional (3D) knitting technology, and its constitutive material is spectra as a non-stretch yarn. However, the final fabric (loop structure) is stretchable in the course direction and non-stretchable in the wale direction (anisotropic structure). The advantage of using this technique is that the contraction in the transverse direction that existed in the previous actuators becomes the expansion improving the actuator performance by about 21% compared to prior counterparts. The available commercial software Abaqus2021 is used for simulation, and its results are verified with the experimental results. A comparative investigation between the presented PMCA and the previous silicone-based counterpart is performed. A meso-macro deformation study is developed experimentally and numerically to justify the improvement of the presented PMCA.