Demolding-Free Casting for Fabricating Inflatable Soft-Rigid Structures

摘要

In this paper, we propose demolding-free casting to fabricate inflatable soft-rigid structures. Soft robots often utilize soft membranes that are inflated by air pressure. Generally, the inherent low rigidity of these soft membranes results in limited force application in specific directions. To address this limitation, inflatable soft-rigid structures, comprising both soft membranes and rigid components, have been proposed to enhance rigidity and directional force by confining the air pressure.Traditional fabrication methods for inflatable soft-rigid structures are often labor-intensive, requiring complex processes such as demolding and bonding. Therefore, we introduce a demolding-free casting technique that facilitates the easy and efficient fabrication of these structures. In demolding-free casting, rigid components are employed as molds to form the soft membranes, thereby eliminating the need for demolding processes. Furthermore, rigid components are designed with ring structures, allowing for a secure joining of soft membranes and rigid components during the molding process. Consequently, when air pressure is applied, the soft membranes inflate without detaching from the rigid components.In this paper, we successfully fabricated planar, half-cylindrical, and cylindrical inflatable soft-rigid structures using the demolding-free casting technique. We experimentally evaluated the performance of the fabricated soft-rigid structures.