One of the many applications of
MACRO FLUIDICS
Here is a sketch I did :
Animated :
Nitinol is an Alloy of Nickel and Titanium.
One of its properties is the shape memory effect.
When heated, for example when electricity flows in it, Nitinol goes from one christallographic state (martensite) to another one (austenite). This makes Nitinol go back to its original shape when heated with quite some strength.
As shown in Fig.1, The idea is to use this effect to contract one after the other nitinol spring rings encapsulated in a rubber cylinder around a rod.
It would be like squishing a hose with our fingers and moving along : water would flow.
Here is an inspirational video from MIT :
Other videos on Nitinol :
Note that even though the title of this video starts with "Free energy", there is not such thing as free energy, at least not here. The energy is coming from the hot water that, prior to the experiment, was heated! But it's still very interesting to be able to transform heat right into rotational mechanical motion.
Even cheaper artificial muscle :
Maybe I'll also try with fishing line.
Artificial muscle have many potential applications : biomimetism, robots, industrial actuators, aerospace, automotive, medicine, soft toys, clothing, tactile interfaces, power generators, smart structures and more.
My direct application is plumbing pumps in self-sufficient houses.
I work with a company called Earthship Biotecture founded by Architect Michael Reynolds. We design and build off-the-grid sustainable houses.
Six principles are at the heart of all our designs :
Basically, the walls are made of rammed earth, very good thermal mass, surrounded by insulation. It's following the bioclimatic rules : sun facing, natural convection, etc.
To go one step further towards self sufficiency, local manufacturing of the systems we use would be great, especially manufacturing of the electrical and water systems.
My peristaltic pump is meant to replace these pumps.
It is durable, can pump dirty water containing detritus, probably mud too and doesn't get clogged.
It can be made locally. Also, since made of soft materials, the pump wouldn't need to be handled with care.
Here is a diagram showing the steps I'll follow to accomplish this project :
We can see how the spiral development implements.
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