Material Parameters Identification, Modeling and Experimental Verification of the New Smart Material for Soft Robotics

In this work the material parameter identification, simulations and experimental verification of the new smart material Vacuum Packed Particles is presented. The considered material is a structure composed of granular material inside the plastomer coating. When the pressure inside is equal or higher than atmospheric the system behaves like a liquid, otherwise like an elasto-plastic solid with a temperature and strain rate dependence. By changing the underpressure inside the coating it is possible to control the mechanical properties of the structure in a real time. Addinionally materials allow to change the shape. In this work, the machine learning approach to model parameter estimation is presented. Additionally, the proposed model is implemented into Finite Element Method code. In order to verify the simulation results a corresponding experimental tests were conducted using optical strain measurement system. The comparison of the outcomes showed a good correlation.