The field of soft robots would benefit from electrically controlled contractile actuators in the form of fibers that achieve a strain of 20% in less than a second while exerting high force. This work explores possible designs for achieving this goal using self-contained electroosmotic fluid pumping within a tube-shaped structure. The most promising configuration is a combination of a bellows an...

A theoretical model of the EOF and hydrodynamic flow in wide closed cylindrical capillaries, after the application of a stepwise voltage, is developed. Analytical expressions have been obtained as a sum of the solutions for the direct flow and backflow in both periodical and aperiodical regimes with arbitrary pulse/pulse or pulse/pause durations and amplitudes. The numerical analysis, performed...

Electroosmotic flow (EOF) commonly involves inhomogeneous fluids in practical applications. EOF hysteresis, which is defined as direction-dependent behavior, has been extensively investigated for dissimilar solution pair systems. Hitherto, there no investigation being conducted to examine the effect of microchannel diameter on hysteresis phenomenon. In this investigation, current monitoring exp...