Research on Coated Fabrics Dedicated to the Development of Artificial Transverse Muscle

The aim of the present work was to select the thickness of a silicone layer coating a PES woven fabric designed for application in the artificial transverse muscles as a component of the medical robot. The artificial muscle in the form of U-shaped tube is subjected to repeated bending. Due to this fact, an important task was to ensure fatigue resistance to the bending of the muscle component. The fatigue bending was performed using the STM 601/12 device manufactured by SATRA Technology, Northamptonshire, UK. The surface geometry of the fabric before and after coating, as well as after 4000, 10,000 and 20,000 cycles of bending, was assessed using the MicroSpy^® Profile profilometer manufactured by the FRT, the art of metrology, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany. Additionally, the microscopic observations of fabric surface were performed after the abovementioned cycles of fatigue bending. The results obtained showed that in order to ensure the required functionality of the coated fabric, the 0.2 mm silicone layer is better than the 0.1 mm silicone layer.