Towards a Recursive Hexapod for the Multidimensional Mechanical Testing of Composites

Abstract

Automated inverse methods for material constitutive characterization under multidimensional loading conditions has motivated the custom design, manufacturing and utilization of mechatronic loading machines. This present paper reports on the architecture of a mechatronic system capable of enforcing 6-DoF kinematic boundary conditions on deformable material specimens under testing, while at the same time measuring both the imposed kinematics and the corresponding reaction forces in a fully automated manner. This system has a recursive nature as it consists of a hexapod configuration that repeats itself six times. In addition to the architecture, we also present the historical evolution, and current status of its manufacturing implementation and the initial fielding of our system for composite material testing and characterization.