Based on our prior study on uniaxial tearing tests, the influences of slit parameters, off-axis angles, and loading speeds on the tearing behaviors and strengths were discussed further. Results show that the tearing behaviors and strengths of the studied material are affected by above factors significantly, and typical tearing stress-displacement curves could be defined as four characteristic regions: a co-deformation region, a yarn extension region (or shear deformation region), a plateau region, and a post peak region. There is a W-shaped relationship between tearing strength and off-axis angle, with a small peak at 45°, and a new tearing strength criterion consisting of two parts, i.e., an inverted V-shaped part and a U-shaped part, was proposed for this laminated fabric. Comparisons between the experimental and the calculated results for the laminated fabric were performed, and the strong agreements demonstrate that the proposed criterion is feasible and accurate.

Aiming at achieving the object grasping task, an inchworm-snake inspired flexible robotic manipulator (FRM) is presented in this article. By using both flexible and rigid materials in the robot structure, the FRM has the stability and control accuracy of a rigid robot as well as the compliant behavior of a soft robot. The piecewise-linear driving characteristic of the shape memory alloy (SMA) actuator enables the accurate establishment of the FRM's kinematic model and model-based control method. Deep learning-based eye-in-hand binocular visual perception is designed to obtain the state feedback without relying on external sensors, making it suitable to perform tasks in confined and unstructured environment. A model-based controller with the deformation planning is introduced with the aim of achieving accurate control in object grasping. The experiments demonstrate that the FRM possesses the capability of performing the object grasping with the proposed methods.

The presence of wrinkles in a membrane is the main factor that induces surface errors on space planar film reflectarrays. Based on the commercial finite element (FE) package ABAQUS, a numerical procedure for membrane wrinkle analysis was set up, and used to analyze a square planar film reflect-array under pure shear force to evaluate its induced wrinkle characteristics. First, the effect of shear force on the wrinkle pattern of the array was studied and validated by experiment. Second, the effect of prestress was studied. When the prestress increases, the quantity of the wrinkles increases, and the amplitude of the wrinkles decreases. Third, the influence of the boundary conditions was investigated. A frame side edge structure has a relatively smooth surface, but also relatively high stress. Finally, the behavior of a joint seam was analyzed. The results indicate that a joint band has a significant influence on the wrinkle pattern of the membrane.

The amorphous silicon photovoltaic (a-Si PV) cells are widely used for electricity generation from solar energy. When the a-Si PV cells are integrated into building roofs, such as ETFE (ethylene–tetrafouoroethylene) cushions, the temperature characteristics are indispensible for evaluating the thermal performances of a-Si PV and its constructions. This temperature value is directly dependent on the solar irradiance, wind velocity, ambient temperature and installation form. This paper concerns the field experiments and numerical modeling on the temperature characteristics and temperature value of the a-Si PV integrated in a double-layer ETFE cushion structure. To this end, an experimental model composed of two a-Si PV cells and a double-layer ETFE cushion was developed, and the corresponding experiments were carried out under two typical weather conditions (summer sunny and summer cloudy). The theoretical thermal model was developed based on an energy balance equation taking the short wave radiation, long wave radiation, convection and generated power into account. The measured solar irradiance and air temperature were used as real weather conditions for the thermal model. The corresponding differential equation of the a-Si PV temperature varying with the solar irradiance and air temperature was solved by a newly developed program based on the numerical method. The measured results show that the influence of solar irradiance on the temperature is much more significant than the other parameters, and the maximum temperature variation under sunny conditions is greater than that under cloudy conditions. The comparative study between the experimental and numerical results shows the correct predictions of the a-Si PV temperature under the sunny and cloudy conditions. The maximum difference is 3.9 °C with the acceptable reasons of the solar irradiance fluctuation and the PV thermal response time. These findings will provide useful observations and explanations for evaluating the PV and building performances in relation to temperature.