Sharif Digital Repository

There are two different ways of using shape memory alloy (SMA) wire as an actuator for shape control of flexible structures: it can be either embedded within the composite laminate or externally attached to the structure. As the actuator can be placed at different offset distances from the beam, external actuators produce more bending moment and, consequently, considerabnle shape changes with the same magnitude of actuation force compared with the embedded type. Such a configuration also provides faster heat transfer rate owing to convection, which is very important in shape control applications that require a highfrequency response of SMA actuators. Although combination and physics-based... 

There are two ways of using SMAs as actuators for shape control of flexible structures; they can be either embedded within composite laminates or externally attached to the structures. Since the actuator can be placed at different offset distances from the beam, external actuators produce more bending moment and, consequently, more shape change. Such a configuration also allows introduction of fast convection cooling, very important in shape control applications that require a high-frequency response of SMA actuators. Although combination and modeling of externally-attached SMA actuator wires and strips have been widely considered by some researchers, these studies have some weaknesses that... 

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... 

Hysteresis and significant nonlinearities in the behavior of Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) actuators encumber effective utilization of these actuator. Due to these effects, the position control of SMA actuators has been a great challenge in recent years. Literature review of the research conducted in this area shows that using the inverse of the phenomenological hysteresis models can compensate the hysteresis of these actuators effectively. But, inverting some of these models, such as Preisach model, is numerically a complex task. However, the generalized Prandtl-Ishlinskii model is analytically invertible, and therefore can be implemented conveniently as a feedforward controller for compensating... 

There are two different ways of using SMA wires as actuators for shape control of flexible structures; which can be either embedded within the composite laminate or externally attached to the structure. Since the actuator can be placed at different offset distances from the beam, external actuators produce more bending moment and, consequently, considerable shape changes with the same magnitude of the actuation force comparing to the embedded type. Such a configuration also provides fast convection which is very important in shape control applications that require a high-frequency response of SMA actuators. Although combination and modeling of externally-attached SMA actuator wires and... 

High temperature shape memory NiTiHf thin films with varying hafnium contents up to 28.7 at.% were fabricated by DC magnetron sputtering using simultaneous sputter deposition from separate elemental targets. The required film composition was achieved by adjusting the power ratio to the targets. The as-deposited films were amorphous; a post deposition annealing was performed at 550 °C to crystallize the films. Two-micron thick films were characterized by energy dispersive spectroscopy in a scanning electron microscope, temperature controlled X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry, and atomic force microscopy. The results showed that above 10 at.% Hf additions the transformation... 

In this paper, a distributed parameter model is used to study the pull-in instability of cantilever type nanomechanical switches subjected to intermolecular and electrostatic forces. In modeling of the electrostatic force, the fringing field effect is taken into account. The model is nonlinear due to the inherent nonlinearity of the intermolecular and electrostatic forces. The nonlinear differential equation of the model is transformed into the integral form by using the Green's function of the cantilever beam. Closed-form solutions are obtained by assuming an appropriate shape function for the beam deflection to evaluate the integrals. The pull-in parameters of the switch are computed under... 

In this paper, a novel thermal microactuator is designed which is capable of producing bi-directional lateral and rotational output and one of its applications as a two DOF micromanipulator is shown. Also, by carefully choosing the doping level, temperature distribution is determined by considering the dependency of silicon's resistivity and conductivity to temperature. Using variable separation method an equation in terms of elliptic integrals is reached and after imposing boundary conditions the exact temperature distribution is obtained numerically. Currents at each branch is updated due to the last temperature distribution and this process is repeated several times until the final... 

Micro actuators are an irreplaceable part of motion control in miniaturized systems and are intended to have a high range of deformation, high accuracy, large force, and quick response. In this article, an analytical model for a hybrid thermopiezoelectric micro actuator is developed in which a double lead-zirconnate-titanate piezoceramic (PZT) beam structure consisting of two arms with different lengths are used. Governing differential equation of motion and electrical field are derived and solved. Out of parametric studies it was observed that, under application of temperature and voltage gradients, the deflection of the actuator shows different trends depending on the geometry of the micro... 

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 research the optimum design of a piezoelectric amplified microactuator has been achieved via equation (1) and sensitivity analysis in FEM simulation software. In addition, for the sake of simplicity and utilizing the FEM software simulation facilities, the control strategy has been embedded in FEM simulation as a programming routine. The simulations showed the efficiency of the proposed controller to suppress the microactuator's undesired vibrations  

In this paper, a novel microfabrication process of a six DOF thermal compliant nanopositioner is presented. The microfabrication process was based on bulk micromachining process. By using this process some important operational restrictions which are usually created by surface micromachining were removed. Moreover, this novel process does not need SOI wafers and needs only ordinary wafers. Therefore, it makes microfabrication process cheaper than surface micromachining processes where SOI wafer should be used. This method is completely appropriate for microactuators which have 120 degree misalignment. Finally, a primary test by using interferometer method was used to test connection of... 

In this paper, a novel microfabrication process of a six DOF thermal compliant nanopositioner is presented. The microfabrication process was based on bulk micromachining process. By using this process some important operational restrictions which are usually created by surface micromachining were removed. Moreover, this novel process does not need SOI wafers and needs only ordinary wafers. Therefore, it makes microfabrication process cheaper than surface micromachining processes where SOI wafer should be used. This method is completely appropriate for microactuators which have 120 degree misalignment. Finally, a primary test by using interferometer method was used to test connection of... 

In flex-tensional piezoactuators, due to the low displacement of piezostacks, a compliant mechanism is used to amplify displacement of piezostack. In this paper, optimization of a compliant mechanism with corner-filleted flexure hinges is carried out using real-coded genetic algorithms (GAs) to avoid trapping in local optimums. The objective functions are displacement amplification and stiffness of mechanism and design variables are cross-sectional size and material used. The constraints which are applied on mechanism are based on piezostack dimensions and manufacturing limits. Displacement amplification and stiffness are calculated using strain energy and Castigliano's displacement theorem.... 

There has been great demand for shape memory alloy (SMA) wires as actuators for shape control of flexible structures. The experimental setup of this study consists of a flexible beam actuated by two active SMA actuators. The input applied to the SMA actuator in this setup is electrical current while the output is the strain or position. To control strain of the actuator, the SMA wire is heated resistively in order to reach the desired temperature calculated by inverse of the phenomenological model. In heating the SMA wire resistively, the controllable quantity is the heat input to the wire via an applied current. In controller design, changes of physical properties of SMA wires and the...