Design of a Miniature Pressure Regulator for use with a Pneumatically Actuated Artificial Arm

1
Design of a Miniature Pressure Regulator for
use with a Pneumatically Actuated Artificial Arm

• Suzanne Lochert a1078416
• Supervisors Frank Wornle
• George Osborne

2
Overview

• Introduction
• Aims of the Project
• Current Limitations of Regulators
• The Design
• Benefits of the Design
• Matlab Simulations
• Future Work
• Conclusions

3
Introduction

• A pressure regulator is used for Pneumatic
  applications
• A regulator reduces pressure and also regulates
  it
• For this application the pressure entering the
  Air Muscle needs to be controlled
• Wide Variety of Pressure Regulators
• Spring or Weight Loaded
• Single or Multiple Diaphragms
• Pilot operated pressure regulator

Popeck, 2001
Gas and Fuel corporation of Victoria (GFCV), 1976
4
Aims of the Project

• Create a miniature pressure regulator
• This regulator is to be used with the Air Muscle
  to allow applications to be autonomous
• This requires
• a portable air supply
• a small and lightweight regulator

The Air Muscle developed at the University of
Adelaide, photo Suzanne Lochert, 2005
5
Current Limitations of Pressure Regulators

• Size of Regulators
• Inability to
• Vary outlet pressure
• Handle large pressures
• Reduce the pressure sufficiently
• Hence current regulators do not meet
  specifications for project

Photo Suzanne Lochert 2005, Regulator courtesy of
Mick Irvine, Office of the Technical Regulator
6
The Design
7
Benefits of the Design

• Spring Loaded
• Single diaphragm
• Safety pressure relief
• Valve positioning system
• Ease of Assembly

Gas and Fuel corporation of Victoria (GFCV),
1976
8
Matlab Simulations

• A static model of the system was created using an
  m-file and simulink to determine system
  parameters
• A dynamic simulation of the system was then
  created using information from the static model
  and modelled in Simulink

Dynamic model of Regulator with no disturbance
Dynamic model of Regulator with a disturbance
9
Future Work

• The regulator once manufactured will be tested
• These tests will be based on tests from
  Australian Standards
• The regulator will then be utilised for
  applications using the Air Muscle

10
Conclusions

• The Miniature Pressure Regulator has been
  designed by combining aspects of available
  regulators to be the optimal design for this
  application
• The simulations performed using Matlab helped to
  optimise the design of the pressure regulator