Sharif Digital Repository

The influence of Casimir and van der Waals forces on the instability of vibratory micro and nano-bridge gyroscopes with proof mass attached to its midpoint is studied. The gyroscope subjected to the base rotation, Casimir and van der Waals attractions is actuated and detected by electrostatic methods. The system has two coupled bending motions actuated by the electrostatic and Coriolis forces. First a system of nonlinear equations for the flexural-flexural deflection of beam gyroscopes is derived using the extended Hamilton's principle. In modeling, the nonlinearities due to mid-plane stretching, electrostatic forces, including fringing field, Casimir and van der Waals attractions, are... 

In this paper, nanoscale modeling of a multi-shell fullerene embedded in an elastic medium and its application to vibrational analysis is investigated. The spherical layers of the multi-shell fullerene are concentrically nested, with carbon-carbon van der Waals interactions between them. Also, the whole multi-shell fullerene is influenced by polymer-carbon van der Waals forces from the surrounding elastic medium. The elasticity generated by the carbon-carbon bonds is assumed to be distributed isotropically over the fullerene surfaces. Following derivation of explicit equations for the motion of the multi-shell fullerene, vibrational behavior of a double-shell fullerene is analyzed and... 

Atomic force microscopes (AFM) can image and manipulate sample properties at the atomic scale. The non-contact mode of AFM offers unique advantages over other contemporary scanning probe techniques, especially when utilized for reliable measurements of soft samples (e.g., biological species). The distance between cantilever tip and sample surface is a time varying parameter even for a fixed sample height, and hence, difficult to identify. A remedy to this problem is to directly identify the sample height in order to generate high precision, atomic-resolution images. For this, the microcantilever is modeled by a single mode approximation and the interaction between the sample and cantilever... 

In this research, the static behavior of torsional nano-/micro-actuators under van der Waals (vdW) force is studied. First, the equilibrium equation governing the static behavior of torsional nano-/micro-actuators under vdW force is obtained. Then the energy method is utilized to investigate the statical stability of nano-/micro-actuator equilibrium points and a useful equation is suggested for the successful and stable design of nano-/micro-actuators under vdW force. Then, the equilibrium angle of nano-/micro-actuators is calculated both numerically and analytically using the homotopy perturbation method (HPM). It is observed that, with increasing instability number, defined in this paper,... 

In this paper, the polymer chain of rotator (PCOR) equation of state (EOS) was used together with an EOS/GE mixing rule (MHV1) and the Wilson's equation as an excess-Gibbs-energy model in the proposed approach to extend the capability and improve the accuracy of the PCOR EOS for predicting the Henry's constant of solutions containing polymers. The results of the proposed method compared with two equation of state (van der Waals and GC-Flory) and three activity coefficient models (UNIFAC, UNIFAC-FV and Entropic-FV) indicated that the PCOR EOS/Wilson's equation provided more accurate results. The interaction parameters of Wilson's equation were fitted with Henry's constant experimental data... 

In this study, influences of intermolecular forces on dynamic pull-in instability of electrostatically actuated beams are investigated. Effects of midplane stretching, electrostatic actuation, fringing fields and intermolecular forces are considered. The boundary conditions of the beams are clamped-free and clamped-clamped. A finite element model is developed to discretize the governing equations and Newmark time discretization is then employed to solve the discretized equations. The results indicate that by increasing the Casimir and van der Waals effects, the effect of inertia on pull-in values considerably increases  

The motion of a C60 molecule over a graphene sheet at finite temperature is investigated both theoretically and computationally. We show that a graphene sheet generates a van der Waals laterally periodic potential, which directly influences the motion of external objects in its proximity. The translational motion of a C60 molecule near a graphene sheet is found to be diffusive in the lateral directions, while in the perpendicular direction, the motion may be described as diffusion in an effective harmonic potential which is determined from the distribution function of the position of the C60 molecule. We also examine the rotational diffusion of C 60 and show that its motion over the graphene... 

The structural instability of an array of cantilevers, each of which interacts with two neighbouring beams through electrostatic and van der Waals forces, is studied. Distributed and lumped parameter modelling of the array result in a set of coupled nonlinear boundary value problems and a set of coupled nonlinear equations, respectively. These coupled nonlinear systems are solved numerically for different numbers of beams in the array to obtain the pull-in parameters. The pull-in parameters converge to constant values with an increase in the number of beams in the array. These constants, which are important in the design of cantilever arrays, are compared for the distributed and lumped... 

CNT-reinforced polymer composites have attracted attention due to their exceptional high strength. The high strength can be affected by the presence of defects in the nanotubes used as reinforcements in the practical nanocomposites. In this paper, a Molecular Structural Mechanics / Finite Element (MSM/FE) multiscale modeling is used to study the effect of carbon nanotube geometrical defects on the stability of SWCNT-polymer composites. Here, two types of representative volume elements (RVEs) for these nanocomposites are considered with perfect and defected CNT. These RVEs have the same dimensions. The nanotube is modeled at the atomistic scale using molecular structural mechanics whereas the... 

Decoding behavioral aspects associated with the water molecules in confined spaces such as an interlayer space of two-dimensional nanosheets is key for the fundamental understanding of water-matter interactions and identifying unexpected phenomena of water molecules in chemistry and physics. Although numerous studies have been conducted on the behavior of water molecules in confined spaces, their reach stops at the properties of the planar ice-like formation, where van der Waals interactions are the predominant interactions and many questions on the confined space such as the possibility of electron exchange and excitation state remain unsettled. We used density functional theory and... 

In this paper, the effect of van der Waals (vdW) force on the pull-in behavior of electrostatically actuated nano/micromirrors is investigated. First, the minimum potential energy principle is utilized to find the equation governing the static behavior of nano/micromirror under electrostatic and vdW forces. Then, the stability of static equilibrium points is analyzed using the energy method. It is found that when there exist two equilibrium points, the smaller one is stable and the larger one is unstable. The effects of different design parameters on the mirror's pull-in angle and pull-in voltage are studied and it is found that vdW force can considerably reduce the stability limit of the... 

In this work, two "classical" (UNIFAC-FV, Entropic-FV) and two "recent" free-volume (FV) models (Kannan-FV, Freed-FV) are comparatively evaluated for polymer-solvent vapor-liquid equilibria including both aqueous and non-aqueous solutions. Moreover, some further developments are presented here to improve the performance of a recent model, the so-called Freed-FV. First, we propose a modification of the Freed-FV model accounting for the anomalous free-volume behavior of aqueous systems (unlike the other solvents, water has a lower free-volume percentage than polymers). The results predicted by the modified Freed-FV model for athermal and non-athermal polymer systems are compared to other... 

Torsional buckling of carbon nanopeapods (carbon nanotubes filled with fullerenes) is studied using a continuum-based multi-layered shell model. The model takes into account non-bonded van der Waals interactions between nested fullerenes and the innermost layer of host nanotube. For nanopeapods with linearly arranged nested fullerenes, equivalent pressure distribution is proposed to model these interactions. Deriving explicit equations governing the torsional stability, it is concluded that the critical torsional load of a carbon nanopeapod is less than that of a carbon nanotube under otherwise identical geometric and mechanical conditions. Performing numerical calculations, it is also shown... 

In this article, the bending stiffness of a double-layered graphene sheet is investigated using a geometrically-based analytical approach. The analysis is based on the van der Waals interactions of atoms belonging to two neighboring sheets. The inter-atomic spacing between the adjacent layers is geometrically determined when the sheet is applied by a couple of moments in the opposite sides. The bending potential energy is obtained by summing up the potentials at discrete hexagons over the length and width of the sheet. It is observed that the bending stiffness of a double-layered graphene sheet does not depend on the length of the sheet and be a material property for the associated sheet.... 

The van der Walls interaction between a carbon nanotube sheet (CNTS) and a rare gas atom, is studied using both atomistic and continuum approaches. We present analytical expressions for the van der Waals energy of continuous nanotubes interacting with a rare gas atom. It is found that the continuum approach does not properly treat the effect of atomistic configurations on the energy surfaces. The energy barriers are small as compared to the thermal energy, which implies the free motion above the CNTS in heights about one nanometer. In contrast to the energy surface of a graphene sheet, the honeycomb lattice structure in the energy surface of a CNTS is imperceivable. Defects alter the energy... 

This paper investigates the effect of dispersion (van der Waals and Casimir) forces on the pull-in instability of cantilever nano-actuators by considering their range of application. Adomian decomposition is introduced to obtain an analytical solution of the distributed parameter model. Dispersion forces decrease the pull-in deflection and voltage of a nano-actuator. However, the fringing field increases the pull-in deflection while decreasing the pull-in voltage of the actuator. The minimum initial gap and the detachment length of the actuator that does not stick to the substrate due to van der Waals and Casimir attractions were determined. Furthermore, the proposed approach is capable of... 

In this study, influences of intermolecular forces on the dynamic pull-in instability of electrostatically actuated beams are investigated. The effects of midplane stretching, electrostatic actuation, fringing fields, and intermolecular forces are considered. The boundary conditions of the beams are clamped-free and clamped-clamped. A finite-element model is developed to discretize the governing equations, and Newmark time discretization is then employed to solve the discretized equations. The static pull-in instability is investigated to validate the model. Finally, dynamic pull-in instability of cantilevers and double-clamped beams are studied considering the Casimir and van der Waals... 

This paper applies the homotopy perturbation method to the simulation of the static response of nano-switches to electrostatic actuation and intermolecular surface forces. The model accounts for the electric force nonlinearity of the excitation and for the fringing field effect. Using a mode approximation in the Galerkin projection method, the nonlinear boundary value differential equation describing the statical behavior of nano-switch is reduced to a nonlinear algebraic equation which is solved using the homotopy perturbation method. The number of included terms in the perturbation expansion for achieving a reasonable response has been investigated. Three cases have been specifically... 

As the delay time and hence nuclei formation play a crucial role in the pathophysiology of sickle cell disease, MD simulation and molecular mechanics-Poisson-Boltzmann surface area (MM-PBSA) calculations have been performed on three systems of hemoglobin; namely dimer of hemoglobin with valine (Hb S), tryptophan (Hbβ6W), and phenylalanine (Hbβ6F) at β6 position. The structural changes due to these aromatic substitutions are investigated. It is shown that β subunits have significant impact on the differences between a dimer and other crystal structures. Transition from a dimer to polymer for Hb S system affects the donor molecule more than that of the acceptor. In the case of donor and...