ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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- Creators: Tao, Junliang
Description
It has been found that certain biological organisms, such as Erodium seeds and Scincus scincus, are capable of effectively and efficiently burying themselves in soil. Biological Organisms employ various locomotion modes, including coiling and uncoiling motions, asymmetric body twisting, and undulating movements that generate motion waves. The coiling-uncoiling motion drives a seed awn to bury itself like a corkscrew, while sandfish skinks use undulatory swimming, which can be thought of as a 2D version of helical motion. Studying burrowing behavior aims to understand how animals navigate underground, whether in their natural burrows or underground habitats, and to implement this knowledge in solving geotechnical penetration problems. Underground horizontal burrowing is challenging due to overcoming the resistance of interaction forces of granular media to move forward. Inspired by the burrowing behavior of seed-awn and sandfish skink, a horizontal self-burrowing robot is developed. The robot is driven by two augers and stabilized by a fin structure. The robot’s burrowing behavior is studied in a laboratory setting. It is found that rotation and propulsive motion along the axis of the auger’s helical shape significantly reduce granular media’s resistance against horizontal penetration by breaking kinematic symmetry or granular media boundary. Additional thrusting and dragging tests were performed to examine the propulsive and resistive forces and unify the observed burrowing behaviors. The tests revealed that the rotation of an auger not only reduces the resistive force and generates a propulsive force, which is influenced by the auger geometry, rotational speed, and direction. As a result, the burrowing behavior of the robot can be predicted using the geometry-rotation-force relations.
ContributorsShaharear, Md Ragib (Author) / Tao, Junliang (Thesis advisor) / Kavazanjian, Edward (Committee member) / Marvi, Hamidreza (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
The Atlantic razor clam burrows underground with effectiveness and efficiency by coordinating shape changings of its shell and foot. Inspired by the burrowing strategy of razor clams, this research is dedicated to developing a self-burrowing technology for active underground explorations by investigating the burrowing mechanism of razor clams from the perspective of soil mechanics. In this study, the razor clam was observed to burrow out of sands simply by extending and contracting its foot periodically. This upward burrowing gait is much simpler than its downward burrowing gait, which also involves opening/closing of the shell and dilation of the foot. The upward burrowing gait inspired the design of a self-burrowing-out soft robot, which drives itself out of sands naturally by extension and contraction through pneumatic inflation and deflation. A simplified analytical model was then proposed and explained the upward burrowing behavior of the robot and razor clams as the asymmetric nature of soil resistances applied on both ends due to the intrinsic stress gradient of sand deposits. To burrow downward, additional symmetry-breaking features are needed for the robot to increase the resistance in the upward burrowing direction and to decrease the resistance in the downward burrowing direction. A potential approach is by incorporating friction anisotropy, which was then experimentally demonstrated to affect the upward burrowing of the soft robot. The downward burrowing gait of razor clams provides another inspiration. By exploring the analogies between the downward burrowing gait and in-situ soil characterization methods, a clam-inspired shape-changing penetrator was designed and penetrated dry granular materials both numerically and experimentally. Results demonstrated that the shell opening not only contributes to forming a penetration anchor by compressing the surrounding particles, but also reduces the foot penetration resistance temporally by creating a stress arch above the foot; the shell closing facilitates the downward burrowing by reducing the friction resistance to the subsequent shell retraction. Findings from this research shed lights on the future design of a clam-inspired self-burrowing robot.
ContributorsHuang, Sichuan (Author) / Tao, Junliang (Thesis advisor) / Kavazanjian, Edward (Committee member) / Marvi, Hamidreza (Committee member) / Zapata, Claudia (Committee member) / van Paassen, Leon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020