Research On Electrorheological Disk Transmission Actuator

The outstanding advantage of an electrorheological (ER) fluid as a mechanicalpower transmission medium is the speed of its shear stress response to the applicationof an electric field. ER devices thus represent an excellent class of interfaces betweenelectronic control units and mechanical components which have gained increasedscientific and economic interest. The successful development of a new generation oftechnology incorporating an ER fluid requires three principal ingredients: advancedER fluid, reliable mechanical mechanism and efficacious control scheme.With discussing the present status and trends of ER technology, many different applications with ER fluids have been analyzed now, but there have few reports domestically and abroad about the ER actuator in the conditions of variable signal, variable load and random interference. Therefore, this paper presents a new ER mechanical transmission to study its dynamic characters. Compared with cylindrical model, the ER disk transmission actuator (ER DTA) has simple structure and can be manufactured easily.In this paper, we identify the model of the ER DTA, on the basis of which a ER DTA is designed and manufactured. It has two characters: 1. left disk, right disk and middle disk are combined. Left disk and right disk rotate with same rate of speed and reverse direction driven by asynchronous motor. The mandrel and the middle disk are integrated to input the signals and transfer power. 2. the control is easy and rapid. For ER fluid we used, its shear stress (r) is not related with the shear rate (y), but electric-field strength (E).In order to ensure the data credence and the control confidence level, virtual instruments(VI) and Labview graphic program are selected to set up the measure and control system of the ER DTA, wrhich can not only control the step motor and the asynchronous motor, but also collect and analyze the signals of temperature, torque and rotational speed.Multiplayer feedforward neural network based on Back-Propagation is used to identify the model of ER DTA to explore the intelligent control of the ER DTA- II -beneficially. We study the relationship of the output torque, the input torque and the applied electric field by this method.By experiment, we acquire the dynamic performance parameters of the ER DTA. It shows that the actuator has good dynamic performance and the design is feasible.