A Theoretical Approach to Pneumatic Muscle Mechanics

Abstract

The mechanical response of pneumatic artificial muscles is analyzed assuming the inextensibility of the sheathing braids and taking into account the stress field inside the rubber bladder, which is regarded as a Mooney-Rivlin hyperelastic material. The end effects are simulated by heuristically profiling the meridian section. After estimating the constitutive parameters by traction tests on rubber specimens, the theoretical results are compared with experiments and a satisfactory accordance may be detected