Person | TU Delft Repository

Martin van Hecke

3 records found

Authored

3D Printed Actuators

Reversibility, Relaxation, and Ratcheting

Journal article (2019) - Chuan Zhao, Chuan Zhao, Mariska Maas, K.M.B. Jansen, Martin van Hecke, Martin van Hecke

Additive manufacturing strives to combine any combination of materials into 3D functional structures and devices, ultimately opening up the possibility of 3D printed machines. It remains difficult to actuate such devices, thus limiting the scope of 3D printed machines to passive ...

Softening and yielding of soft glassy materials

Journal article (2017) - S Dagois-Bohy, S Dagois-Bohy, Ellák Somfai, B.P. Tighe, Martin van Hecke, Martin van Hecke

Solids deform and fluids flow, but soft glassy materials, such as emulsions, foams, suspensions, and pastes, exhibit an intricate mix of solid- and liquid-like behavior. While much progress has been made to understand their elastic (small strain) and flow (infinite strain) proper ...

Contributed

A Robot out of a 3D Printer

An exploration of 3D printed Thermal Actuators

Master thesis (2017) - M.A.E. Maas, K.M.B. Jansen, Chuan Zhao, Martin van Hecke

This report is an exploration of 3D Printed Thermal Actuators (PTAs). The goal of the project is to create a 3D printed demonstrator that shows the qualities of PTAs.

PTAs are created with a Voxel8 Multi-material printer which prints both PLA and a silver paste. When electrical power is applied to the silver trace, the plastic will heat up because of Joule heating in the silver trace the plastic will react to the heat by bending. This makes it an example of 4D printing. Compared to other 4D printed samples, PTAs have the advantage that they can repeat their motion. Additionally, PTAs are able to focus their energy locally, because of the placement of the silver traces.

To create a better understanding of the potential of PTAs, the Material Driven Design Method (Karana, et al., 2015) was used and set of cards with the different qualities was created. The material experience vision has been defined as; a PTA should be admired, not handled. Just like a flower that is blooming or a ladybug that walks over your hand.

Multiple design ideas were generated by using the input from the set of cards with qualities, characteristics in nature and random words. With these ideas, three different concepts were created: Inchworm, Sloth and Turtle. Of these design ideas, the Inchworm and Turtle scored quite similar. However, the Turtle can also carry its own battery and therefore has the most design potential. The Turtle was chosen to be further developed into the 3D printed demonstrator.

The result of this graduation project is the Turtle Tinybot. Placing the active part under an angle, combined with a rough floor and Arduino controlled power supply, proved to be the best method to create locomotion. The pattern of the shell of the Turtle Tinybot has been carefully selected because it has several functions. The final design has a shell with a voronoi pattern, two hind legs and a tail.

This report is an exploration of 3D Printed Thermal Actuators (PTAs). The goal of the project is to create a 3D printed demonstrator that shows the qualities of PTAs.