Sharif Digital Repository

In this paper, design, simulation and optimization of a novel electrothermally-activated polymeric microactuator capable of generating combination of bidirectional lateral and rotational motions are presented. The composite structure of this actuator is consisted of a symmetric meandered shape silicon skeleton, a SU8 thermal expandable polymer and a thin film chrome layer heater. This actuator is controlled by applying appropriate voltages on its four terminals. With the purpose of dimension optimization, a numerical parametric study is executed. The modeled actuator which is 1560 ?m long, 156 ?m wide and 30 ?m thick, demonstrates a remarkable lateral displacement of 23 ?m at power... 

This article introduces a new time-varying model to generate synthetic non-stationary acceleration records using the modified Kanaii-Tajimi model with time-variant parameters. The proposed method can capture two different dominant frequencies per time which makes it suitable for synthesizing the near-field no-pulse earthquake records. A number of closed-form relationships are developed to describe the frequency dependent time-domain level crossings of the simulated records under white noise excitation. The model parameters are optimized using the crossing and Arias intensity properties of the synthetic and target records. The efficiency of the proposed model is demonstrated using a data base... 

This paper introduces an efficient stochastic method to produce fully nonstationary records having multiple peaks in power spectrum. The zero-crossing characteristics of the acceleration, velocity, and displacement time histories of the output signal are used to estimate the model parameters. This procedure is utilized to resimulate 252 non-pulse-like, horizontal near-field records with rupture distance of less than 10 km and strike–slip mechanism. The model parameters are regressed against moment magnitude, rupture distance, hypo-central depth, and shear wave velocity, enabling the scenario-based simulation of the records. The response spectra of the simulated records are compared with... 

The robots that can move on rough terrains are very important especially in Rescue operation, exploration, etc. In this research, a mechanism is introduced for a ring-like robot with a flexible body. This robot is moved by arms which are placed radially and have Reciprocating motion in this direction. By controlling the contraction and the extension of the arms which contact lhe ground, the robot will be forced to move which is called rolling-creeping motion. The robot is stable in stationary state.; also the maximum angle which it can be stable is determined. Considering the speed of contracted arm is the input parameter, the speed of the extended arm for locomotion of the robot has been... 

Motion planning in an autonomous agent is responsible for providing smooth, safe and efficient navigation. Many solutions for dealing this problem have been offered, one of which is, Artificial Potential Fields (APF). APF is a simple and computationally low cost method which keeps the robot away from the obstacles in environment. However, this approach suffers from trapping in local minima of potential function and then fails to produce motion plans. Furthermore, Oscillation in presence of obstacles or in narrow passages is another disadvantage of the method which makes it unqualified for many planning problems. In this paper we aim to resolve these deficiencies by a novel approach which... 

Attitude determination for underwater vehicles in control and navigation applications has been always an important issue. MEMS-based accelerometer and gyroscope data can be usually used to determine the underwater vehicle attitude. However, the gyroscope sensors suffer from bias problem and the accelerometer data is not reliable in the presence of the external acceleration for the attitude determination. Therefore, data fusion for these two sensors is used to determine the attitude. But it should be noted that the common fusion algorithm does not perceive some special maneuvering accelerated motions and the use of accelerometer data causes a mistake in determining the Euler angles in these... 

This paper discusses the time-varying characteristics of the output signals resulted from Linear Time Variant (LTV) systems using level-crossing properties. These systems, used for generating synthetic records based on a target record, contain two identification processes: 1) amplitude modulating function; and 2) time-varying Impulse Response Function (IRF) parameters. To track the IRF parameters efficiently, the zerocrossing and positive minima/negative maxima cumulative curves are usually utilized as the measures of the instantaneous spectral power. Using spectral moments, analytic relations for zero-crossing and positive minima/negative maxima cumulative count are developed with respect... 

High speed planing hulls have complex hydrodynamic behaviors. The trim angle and drafts are very sensitive to speed and location of the center of gravity. Therefore, motion simulation for such vessels needs a strong coupling between rigid body motions and hydrodynamic analysis. In addition, free surface should be predicted with good accuracy for each time step. In this paper, velocity and pressure fields are coupled by use of the fractional step method. On the basis of integration of the two-phase viscous flow induced stresses over the hull, acting loads (forces and moments) are calculated. With the strategy of boundary-fitted body-attached mesh and calculation of 6-DoF motions in each time... 

General purpose software is developed to simulate 6-DoF fluid-structure interaction in two-phase viscous flow. It is a VoF-fractional step solver based on the finite-volume discretization which uses a boundary-fitted body-attached hexahedral grid as the motion simulation strategy. As an application, a high-speed planing catamaran is simulated in steady forward motion as well as in turning maneuver. Results are compared with the available data and good qualitative and quantitative agreements are achieved. Numerical schemes and the solution algorithm of the software are consistent and show a good capability to model highly nonlinear ship motions. It can be further developed to represent a more... 

In the present study, a novel strategy based on particle motion mode is introduced to control the manipulation process of a bio-particle using trolling mode atomic force microscope. To achieve this goal, the reduced governing partial differential equations and the standard form of the system are used as a model for the system dynamic behavior. The governing equations take 6 degrees of freedom into account including extension, torsion, and two lateral bendings of the microcantilever as well as two lateral bendings of the nanoneedle. Manipulation process of the 500 nm radius particle on the substrate includes two phases named sticking and sliding. Sticking of the particle to the substrate... 

Background: Accurate tracking of the heart surface motion is a major requirement for robot assisted beating heart surgery. Method: The feasibility of a stereo infrared tracking system for measuring the free beating heart motion was investigated by experiments on a heart motion simulator, as well as model surgery on a dog. Results: Simulator experiments revealed a high tracking accuracy (81 μm root mean square error) when the capturing times were synchronized and the tracker pointed at the target from a 100 cm distance. The animal experiment revealed the applicability of the infrared tracker with passive markers in practical heart surgery conditions. Conclusion: With the current technology,...