RIGHTING OF CHINESE MITTEN CRABS (ERIOCHEIR SINENSIS) AND THEIR MODELS

The usage of unmanned underwater vehicles for marine tasks is continuously growing and bioinspired stabilizing systems shall help them to gain and keep a stable position during work. Therefore the righting maneuver of E. sinensis has been studied. These crabs are able to perform a 180°-rotation with an angular velocity of 4.30 s−1 when falling underwater from a supine starting position. High-speed particle image velocimetry has shown, that propulsive forces with a peak of 0.021 ± 0.001 N were produced by the hind legs to initiate and stop the rotation. In a numerical multibody simulation a constant force of 0.009 N acting for 0.2 s leads to the same rotation. In order to prove this mechanism, it was implemented into a robotic system. Its mean density of 1.15 g/cm3 deviates not more than 4% from the biological and numerical models. It can complete a 180°-turn within 1.03 ± 0.12 s with a rotational velocity of up to 4.25 s−1

RIGHTING OF CHINESE MITTEN CRABS (ERIOCHEIR SINENSIS) AND THEIR MODELS

The usage of unmanned underwater vehicles for marine tasks is continuously growing and bioinspired stabilizing systems shall help them to gain and keep a stable position during work. Therefore the righting maneuver of E. sinensis has been studied. These crabs are able to perform a 180°-rotation with an angular velocity of 4.30 s−1 when falling underwater from a supine starting position. High-speed particle image velocimetry has shown, that propulsive forces with a peak of 0.021 ± 0.001 N were produced by the hind legs to initiate and stop the rotation. In a numerical multibody simulation a constant force of 0.009 N acting for 0.2 s leads to the same rotation. In order to prove this mechanism, it was implemented into a robotic system. Its mean density of 1.15 g/cm3 deviates not more than 4% from the biological and numerical models. It can complete a 180°-turn within 1.03 ± 0.12 s with a rotational velocity of up to 4.25 s−1

SAUV-A Bio-Inspired Soft-Robotic Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

Autonomous and remotely operated underwater vehicles allow us to reach places which have previously been inaccessible and perform complex repair, exploration and analysis tasks. As their navigation is not infallible, they may cause severe damage to themselves and their often fragile surroundings, such as flooded caves, coral reefs, or even accompanying divers in case of a collision. In this study, we used a shallow neural network, consisting of interlinking PID controllers, and trained by a genetic algorithm, to control a biologically inspired AUV with a soft and compliant exoskeleton. Such a compliant structure is a versatile and passive solution which reduces the accelerations induced by collisions to 56% of the original mean value acting upon the system, thus, notably reducing the stress on its components and resulting reaction forces on its surroundings. The segmented structure of this spherical exoskeleton protects the encased system without limiting the use of cameras, sensors or manipulators.1131

3D escape: an alternative paradigm for spatial orientation studies in insects

Arthropods and in particular insects show a great variety of different exoskeletal sensors. For most arthropods, spatial orientation and gravity perception is not fully understood. In particular, the interaction of the different sensors is still a subject of ongoing research. A disadvantage of most of the experimental methods used to date to study the spatial orientation of arthropods in behavioral experiments is that the body or individual body parts are fixed partly in a non-natural manner. Therefore, often only the movement of individual body segments can be used to evaluate the experiments. We here present a novel experimental method to easily study 3D-escape movements in insects and analyze whole-body reaction. The animals are placed in a transparent container, filled with a lightweight substrate and rotating around two axes. To verify our setup, house crickets (Acheta domesticus) with selectively manipulated gravity-perceiving structures were analyzed. The spatial orientation behavior was quantified by measuring the time individuals took to escape toward the surface and the angular deviation toward the gravitational vector. These experiments confirm earlier results and therefore validated our experimental setup. Our new approach thus allows to investigate several comprehensive questions regarding the spatial orientation of insects and other animals

Structure-property relationships in Japanese knotweed – The potential of using the stem for composite applications

The Japanese perennial knotweed (Fallopia japonica) is a globally widespread neophyte whose usability is being investigated, e.g., to use knotweed for biogas plants and as a substitute for firewood. The present study investigates the potential of Japanese knotweed for material use. Morphological studies were carried out on the stem cell structures and arrangements (microstructure) and the external stem structure (macrostructure) and showed that Japanese knotweed is a plant species with several hierarchical morphological levels being a highly complex fibre-matrix composite with a low density. Mechanical properties were investigated using tensile, bending, compression and impact tests for fresh and dry specimens and then mathematically converted in density-related lightweight construction indices and compared with other materials using Ashby maps. Particularly under compression, properties are close to woods and wood composites, making the plant an interesting material for lightweight sandwich panels, where assembled slices of the stalk could serve as core elements. Fibre bundles, extracted from the stalk, show relatively low mechanical properties (tensile strength: 93 MPa; Young's modulus: 4.77 GPa) compared to bast fibres such as hemp. The shredded stalks could be compounded into homogeneous granulates directly after harvesting without other separation processes. Therefore, the study presents a proof of concept for Japanese knotweed to apply the shredded stalks in injection-moulded PLA composites (tensile strength: mean = 54 MPa; Young's modulus: mean = 5.61 GPa) comparable or even better than wood fibre-reinforced polymers

Development and Evaluation of a Novel Method for Reinforcing Additively Manufactured Polymer Structures with Continuous Fiber Composites

Additively manufactured polymer structures often exhibit strong anisotropies due to their layered composition. Although existing methods in additive manufacturing (AM) for improving the mechanical properties are available, they usually do not eliminate the high degree of structural anisotropy. Existing methods for continuous fiber (cF) reinforcement in AM can significantly increase the mechanical properties in the strand direction, but often do not improve the interlaminar strength between the layers. In addition, it is mostly not possible to deposit cFs three-dimensionally and curved (variable–axial) and, thus, in a path that is suitable for the load case requirements. There is a need for AM methods and design approaches that enable cF reinforcements in a variable–axial way, independently of the AM mounting direction. Therefore, a novel two-stage method is proposed in which the process steps of AM and cF integration are decoupled from each other. This study presents the development and validation of the method. It was first investigated at the specimen level, where a significant improvement in the mechanical properties was achieved compared to unreinforced polymer structures. The Young’s modulus and tensile strength were increased by factors of 9.1 and 2.7, respectively. In addition, the design guidelines were derived based on sample structures, and the feasibility of the method was demonstrated on complex cantilevers