Increasing the Force Exertion of a Soft Actuator Using Externally Attachable Inter-Chamber Plates
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
1) In this paper, the impact of inter-chamber plate thickness on exertion force is examined. However, other structural characteristics, such as chamber thickness, height, and quantity, can also influence exertion force. Thus, the current analysis findings may be insufficient.
2)What is the impact of inter-chamber plates on bending movement?
3)In addition, the article examines how the external inter-chamber plates impact passive lateral bending. Have you considered conducting tests on the lateral force under pressurized conditions?
4)The paper omits some significant references, such as
[1] B. Mosadegh, P. Polygerinos, C. Keplinger, S. Wennstedt, R. F. Shepherd, U. Gupta, J. Shim, K. Bertoldi, C. J. Walsh, and G. M. Whitesides, “Pneumatic networks for soft robotics that actuate rapidly,” Advanced Functional Materials, vol. 24, no. 15, pp. 2163-2170, Apr, 2014.
[2]Z. Liu, F. J. Wang, S. F. Liu, Y. L. Tian, and D. W. Zhang, “Modeling and Analysis of Soft Pneumatic Network Bending Actuators,” Ieee-Asme Transactions on Mechatronics, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 2195-2203, Aug, 2021.
[3] W. B. Chen, C. H. Xiong, C. L. Liu, P. M. Li, and Y. H. Chen, “Fabrication and Dynamic Modeling of Bidirectional Bending Soft Actuator Integrated with Optical Waveguide Curvature Sensor,” Soft Robotics, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 495-506, Aug 1, 2019.
Overall, the quality of English language in this paper seems to be good. However, there are a few instances where sentence structure or word choice could be improved for clarity or precision.
For example, in the abstract, the phrase "spread from industrial grippers to wearable devices" could be revised to "become increasingly common in wearable devices" for clearer phrasing.
In the introduction, the sentence "The soft actuator is a kind of soft robot that is made entirely of elastic materials and can generate force through deformation under external stimuli" could be revised to "A soft actuator is a type of soft robot constructed entirely from elastic materials, which generate force through deformation in response to external stimuli."
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for taking the time to review my manuscript and providing corrections. I have carefully reviewed your comments and made the necessary revisions to the manuscript based on your suggestions:
1) In this paper, the impact of inter-chamber plate thickness on exertion force is examined. However, other structural characteristics, such as chamber thickness, height, and quantity, can also influence exertion force. Thus, the current analysis findings may be insufficient.
- In this study, we aimed to investigate how the insertion of solid plates between the chambers affects the force generation of a soft actuator designed for rehabilitation purposes with specific physical parameters. During the study, we did not consider modifying the physical parameters as the focus was on measuring the effects generated by the plates. However, we will address in further research how variations in each parameter affect the efficiency of the plates' performance.
2) What is the impact of inter-chamber plates on bending movement?
- The central topic of the article is increasing the force exertion of a specific actuator with external inter-chamber plates. The actuator itself was designed for use in rehabilitation devices based on its physical parameters, as mentioned in line 90. In these applications, both ends of the actuators are fixed, so we did not separately investigate the effect of the plates on bending motion. However, Figure 4(c) in the article illustrates their effect on the initial state. The article has been supplemented with this data in lines 155-159.
3) In addition, the article examines how the external inter-chamber plates impact passive lateral bending. Have you considered conducting tests on the lateral force under pressurized conditions?
-The lateral movements in rehabilitation devices usually occur in the non-operational state as the actuators allow them through their flexibility. Devices under pressure force the connected limb/device onto a controlled path due to the exerted forces, so the magnitude of lateral movements in this state is not significant. Therefore, the article only examined the non-pressurized state which is more significant in the case of devices equipped with soft actuators.
4)The paper omits some significant references
- The referenced articles have been incorporated into the manuscript: line 51, 58, 42.
I corrected the English language errors in the text based on your comments. The entire text of the article has been improved in terms of English language.
Once again, I appreciate your valuable feedback and expertise, which have greatly contributed to the improvement of the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Attila Mészáros
Reviewer 2 Report
In this paper, a method to increase the force exertion of a pneumatic multi-chambered soft actuator by is introduced. The fabrication and actuation tests of the soft actuator with attachable inter-chamber plates are described in the content, and the improvements in force and bending angle is discussed. There are some problems in this paper, which will be listed below：
1. Line 74: ‘Essentially, this is achieved with at least a two-step process. However, if new layers of materials are incorporated into the actuator body to reduce stretching, this process involves multiplying the steps.’ What are these steps? Please explain it in detail.
2. Line 76: ’Therefore, the bending performance of fully elastic material-made actuators lags behind of composite types, but their production process is simpler and can be accomplished with fewer steps.’ Please add some details to support this statement.
3. Line 144: ‘The actuator contains 15 chambers; therefore 13 plates are needed to fill all the places 144 between every chamber.’ I think the number of plates here should be 14 rather than 13.
4. Line 157: In Figure 5, the unit names should be labeled for better understanding of the structure of the test platform.
5. Line 188: ’ the maximum force does not immediately occur; it may take several seconds for it to build up (Figure 6).’ What the ‘several seconds’ here? The response time during pressurization should be specifically mentioned and discussed.
6. Line 323: ‘However, the deformation for these plates did not reach 50°, as certain deformations occurred during bending (Figure 12) that were not in the intended bending direction.’ How to conclude that the bending of soft actuator is not intend?
7. There are some errors in this article, such as the header in Figure 1 being separated from the image on line 81, and the Figure 12 being miswritten as Figure 11 on line 327.
The English language should be improved.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for taking the time to review my manuscript and providing corrections. I have carefully reviewed your comments and made the necessary revisions to the manuscript based on your suggestions:
- Line 74: ‘Essentially, this is achieved with at least a two-step process. However, if new layers of materials are incorporated into the actuator body to reduce stretching, this process involves multiplying the steps.’ What are these steps? Please explain it in detail.
- The manuscript has been supplemented with a more detailed description of the mentioned steps. The supplement can be seen in the lines 74-79.
- Line 76: ’Therefore, the bending performance of fully elastic material-made actuators lags behind of composite types, but their production process is simpler and can be accomplished with fewer steps.’ Please add some details to support this statement.
- The description of the properties of actuators made entirely of elastic material can be found in the following lines: 81-85.
- Line 144: ‘The actuator contains 15 chambers; therefore 13 plates are needed to fill all the places 144 between every chamber.’ I think the number of plates here should be 14 rather than 13.
- Thank you for the comment, indeed the correct number is 14. It has been corrected in line 152.
- Line 157: In Figure 5, the unit names should be labeled for better understanding of the structure of the test platform.
- The 5th figure has been updated with the requested labels in line 168.
- Line 188: ’ the maximum force does not immediately occur; it may take several seconds for it to build up (Figure 6).’ What the ‘several seconds’ here? The response time during pressurization should be specifically mentioned and discussed.
- A detailed description of the response time have been added to the manuscript. The modification can be seen in the lines 205-212.
- Line 323: ‘However, the deformation for these plates did not reach 50°, as certain deformations occurred during bending (Figure 12) that were not in the intended bending direction.’ How to conclude that the bending of soft actuator is not intend?
- The manuscript has benn expanded with a detailed description of the not intended bending directions, as stated in the lines 343-349.
- There are some errors in this article, such as the header in Figure 1 being separated from the image on line 81, and the Figure 12 being miswritten as Figure 11 on line 327.
- Thank you for the comments. Figure 1 has been aligned to the page on line 98, and the caption of figure 12 has been corrected on line 351.
The entire text of the article has been improved in terms of English language.
Once again, I appreciate your valuable feedback and expertise, which have greatly contributed to the improvement of the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Attila Mészáros
Reviewer 3 Report
Reviewer’s Report
Manuscript No.: actuators-2382250
Date: 2023-05-09
Title: Increasing the force exertion of a soft actuator using externally attachable inter-chamber plates
Reviewer’s Comments:
The authors proposed the soft actuators equipped with external chamber plates and investigated the force characteristics of the soft actuators on plate thickness. The idea and the process of proving that the insertion of an external plate that fills the gap between the chambers increases the external force of the actuator is impressive. However, there is a lack of logical explanation of the manuscript as a whole. Specifically, it is as follows.
1. It seems to be easier for readers to read by combining Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 into one figure. I hope the authors will discuss this matter.
2. Lines 69-72 would be good to describe in the introduction part.
3. Please indicate the units and materials in Fig. 1.
4. What is the casting mold for lines 97 and 103?
5. Can the authors express Fig. 2 in a more understandable way? For example, isn't there a way to express the description of lines 111-115 in Fig. 2?
6. I'm confused because the titles of Tables 1 and 2 are the same. Please express it differently.
7. The sentences in lines 56-58 and lines 126-128 are the same. Please express it differently.
8. The best properties are shown when the plate thickness is 2 mm. What about at thicker than that?
9. As the authors mentioned, the thicker the plate, the better the performance of the actuator, but causes the resting deformation. A discussion is needed on this matter.
English expression needs to be improved.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for taking the time to review my manuscript and providing corrections. I have carefully reviewed your comments and made the necessary revisions to the manuscript based on your suggestions:
- It seems to be easier for readers to read by combining Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 into one figure. I hope the authors will discuss this matter.
- Thank you for your comment. Indeed, the two figures could be merged due to their similar content; however, we do not recommend their unification for the following reasons: Although the figures refer to the same soft actuator, Figure 1 illustrates its structural parameters, while Figure 2 shows the manufacturing process of the actuator. As suggested later in point 5, we have added more information to Figure 2 for better clarity, so they contain abundant information separately to better understand.
- Lines 69-72 would be good to describe in the introduction part.
- The manuscript has been supplemented with a more detailed description in the lines 49-54.
- Please indicate the units and materials in Fig. 1.
- The units and materials have been added to the caption of Figure 1 in line 89.
- What is the casting mold for lines 97 and 103?
- The manuscript has been expanded with a more detailed description in lines 105-107, 110-113.
- Can the authors express Fig. 2 in a more understandable way? For example, isn't there a way to express the description of lines 111-115 in Fig. 2?
- Figure 2 has been supplemented with a more details for better understanding in line 108.
- I'm confused because the titles of Tables 1 and 2 are the same. Please express it differently.
- Thank you for the feedback. Indeed, the titles showed a great similarity. The changes have been made in lines 114, 162.
- The sentences in lines 56-58 and lines 126-128 are the same. Please express it differently.
- The sentences have been rephrased in the new version in lines 56-58 and 134-136.
- The best properties are shown when the plate thickness is 2 mm. What about at thicker than that?
- The manuscript has been expanded with a more detailed description in lines 264-277.
- As the authors mentioned, the thicker the plate, the better the performance of the actuator, but causes the resting deformation. A discussion is needed on this matter.
- The manuscript has been expanded with a detailed description of the deformations in the lines 343-349.
I corrected the English language errors in the text based on your comments. The entire text of the article has been improved in terms of English language.
Once again, I appreciate your valuable feedback and expertise, which have greatly contributed to the improvement of the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Attila Mészáros
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper still has some minor issues, such as the low resolution of figure 7a .
