A Rubber-Reinforced Serial Chain of Torsion Springs for an Impulse Force Generator based on Snap-through Buckling of Closed Elastica

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a rubber-reinforced serial chain of torsion springs for an impulse force generator based on snap-through buckling of closed elastica. The distinguished feature of the proposed device is to utilize an elastic energy of rubbers for generating impulse force. Utilizing an elastic energy of rubbers, its weight reduction of conventional ratio 11[%] is realized with maintaining its high elasticity and flexibility.The proposed device can generate the maximum momentum 14 [Ns] with only the required maximum driving torque 15 [Nm]. The values shows that the maximum momentum per unit of the maximum driving torque of the device is about 1.2 times as large as the impulse force generator using conventional one.