The goal of the project is to design an electrically actuated 3D printed pneumatic valve. The application of this switch is the control of the pneumatically actuated endoscope that is currently developed in the RAM research group. In this endoscope pressurized gases are used to control the angle of bending of the endoscope and the intended valve design can be used to control switching between the highpressure and low-pressure gas supply tubes. For the development of this valve, various valve concepts will be modeled, fabricated and characterized.
One example concept is a valve that mainly consists of a heater, liquid, flexible membrane and casing. The idea is to actuate a flexible membrane by the pressure due to the thermal expansion of the liquid in the switch. This is achieved by heating the liquid with the help of a heater, which is electrically controlled to achieve the optimum temperature for the required deformation. For this concept, the main challenge is to cool down the liquid quick enough.