The Design and Testing of RoboClam: A Machine Used to Investigate and Optimize Razor Clam-Inspired Burrowing Mechanisms for Engineering Applications
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The design.pdf
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Author(s)
Winter, Amos G.
Hosoi, Anette E
Slocum, Alexander H
Deits, Robin Lloyd Henderson
Date Issued
August 2009
Journal
Volume 7: 33rd Mechanisms and Robotics Conference, Parts A and B
Publisher
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Citation
Winter, Amos G., A. E. Hosoi, Alexander H. Slocum, and Robin L. H. Deits. “The Design and Testing of RoboClam: A Machine Used to Investigate and Optimize Razor Clam-Inspired Burrowing Mechanisms for Engineering Applications.” Volume 7: 33rd Mechanisms and Robotics Conference, Parts A and B (2009).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Razor clams (Ensis directus) are one of nature’s most adept burrowing organisms, able to dig to 70cm at nearly 1cm/s using only 0.21J/cm. Ensis reduces burrowing drag by using motions of its shell to fluidize a thin layer of substrate around its body. Although these shell motions have an energetic cost, moving through fluidized rather than packed soil results in exponentially lower overall energy consumption. This paper describes the design and testing of RoboClam, a device that mimics Ensis digging methods to understand the limits of razor clam-inspired burrowing, how they scale for different environments and conditions, and how they can be transferred into engineering applications. Using a genetic optimization solver, we found that RoboClam’s most efficient digging motion mimicked Ensis shell kinematics and yielded a power law relationship between digging energy and depth of n = 1.17, very close to the ideal value of n = 1. Pushing through static soil has a theoretical energy-depth power law of n = 2, which means that Ensis-inspired burrowing motions can provide exponentially higher energy efficiency and nearly depth-independent drag resistance.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mathematics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1115/DETC2009-86808
