The advantages of carbon fiber manipulators compared to metal manipulators
The advantages of carbon fiber manipulators compared to metal manipulators
Due to the heavy weight of traditional metal material manipulators, the work efficiency, accuracy, and safety and reliability of the robot are greatly reduced, and a lot of unnecessary energy consumption is increased in the long-term work, which has an unfriendly impact on the environment. Therefore, it is important to find a substitute material that can not only meet the performance requirements of strength and stiffness, but also minimize the weight of the robot arm. Whether it is the choice of material or the design of the robotic arm, it has the same big impact on the use of the product.
The use of industrial robots is a typical sign of modern manufacturing. It not only plays an important role in batch and high-intensity operations, but also in some harsh environments that are dangerous or unsuitable for human work, and in some operations with high precision requirements. Among them, its role is more obvious. As a high-strength, high-modulus, high-performance advanced composite material, carbon fiber composite material is much stronger than traditional metals such as steel, but its weight is much lighter than steel. The strength is much higher than that of lightweight magnesium alloys, which can be suitable for high-strength work tasks in heavy industry. Compared with light and cheap aluminum alloys, carbon fiber materials are not prone to creep under large temperature differences, which helps to improve The stability and accuracy of the robot arm operation.
Although the application cost of carbon fiber composites is much higher than that of traditional metals such as aluminum alloys, in the long-term use of the robotic arm, the initial material cost will be rewarded in the form of low energy consumption, high efficiency and long service life. Therefore, in addition to the main operating arm, large structural frames, profile beams and other parts can also be made of carbon fiber composite materials as much as possible. This material helps the robot arm to achieve the perfect performance of lightweight, high rigidity, precise positioning and high speed.
In actual use, the robot arm needs to bear loads from both the end and its own gravity. Although carbon fiber composite material has high strength, its material has the defects of anisotropy and easy tearing. Therefore, the developers of Noen Composite Materials have fully considered this point and performed complex stress calculations when using this material to make robotic arms. Through the performance comparison of different schemes, the structure optimization of the robotic arm is realized. On this basis, in order to give full play to the advantages of the designability of carbon fiber composite materials, our company’s R&D engineers and robotic arm designers have worked together to try to change the original equal wall thickness design and adopt a variable wall thickness design. The actual stress points are different, and the wall thickness ply of the robotic arm is further optimized. In the end, the weight of the variable-wall-thick carbon fiber robotic arm is further reduced by about 11% compared to the equal-wall-thick carbon fiber robotic arm.
The design of lightweight manipulator must be carried out in accordance with the actual situation of the material. When the manipulator is made of carbon fiber composite materials, if the layer change in the transition area is too large, it is easier to cause stress concentration. Therefore, while the manipulator designer pursues the thinnest and lightest design, he also needs to consider the overall stress level of the manipulator and achieve a balance between the two in order to achieve both structural rigidity and lightweight effects.