Quasi-static cyclic tests on reinforced concrete (RC) walls have shown that shear deformations can constitute a significant ratio of the total deformations when the wall is loaded beyond the elastic regime. For slender RC walls that form a stable flexural mechanism, the ratio of shear to flexural deformations remains approximately constant over the entire range of imposed displacement ductiliti...

This paper presents a novel decoupled two degrees of freedom (2-DOF) translational parallel micro-positioning stage. The stage consists of a monolithic compliant mechanism driven by two piezoelectric actuators. The end-effector of the stage is connected to the base by four independent kinematic limbs. Two types of compound flexure module are serially connected to provide 2-DOF for each limb. Th...

The durability of resin-dentin bonds is a growing concern in the placement of composite restorations. Most reported evaluations concerning the mechanical behavior of the bonded interface are conducted using static loading to failure only. They also do not account for the acid production of biofilms, which is one of the most common contributors to interfacial failures in vivo. In this investigat...

This paper presents a micro XY stage that employs electrostatic comb-drive actuators and achieves a bi-directional displacement range greater than 225 μm per motion axis. The proposed XY stage design comprises four rigid stages (ground, motion stage, and two intermediate stages) interconnected via flexure modules. The motion stage, which has two translational degrees of freedom, is connected to...

this study deals with the applications of a trigonometric shear deformation theory considering the effect of the transverse shear deformation on the static flexural analysis of the soft core sandwich beams. the theory gives realistic variation of the transverse shear stress through the thickness, and satisfies the transverse shear stress free conditions at the top and bottom surfaces of the bea...

This paper presents a micro XY stage that employs electrostatic comb-drive actuators and achieves a bi-directional displacement range greater than 225 μm per motion axis. The proposed XY stage design comprises four rigid stages (ground, motion stage, and two intermediate stages) interconnected via flexure modules. The motion stage, which has two translational degrees of freedom, is connected to...

This Note presents a new asymmetric flexure design, the double parallelogram-tilted-beam double parallelogram (DP-TDP) flexure, that enables two times higher stroke in electrostatic comb-drive actuators, compared to the traditional symmetrically paired double parallelogram (DP-DP) flexure, while maintaining the same device footprint. Because of its unique kinematic configuration, the DP-TDP fle...

As a kind of important flexible joint, two-axis flexure hinges can realize in-plane and out-of-plane motions and can be used for constructing flexure-based spatial compliant mechanisms. The paper introduces a common two-axis elliptical-arc-filleted flexure hinge that is generated by two different elliptical-arc-filleted cutout profiles and that provides some new hinge types. The analytical comp...

A novel flexure hinge named half circular-elliptical hybrid flexure hinge was presented. Based on Castigliano’s Displacement Theorem, the compliance equations of the novel flexure hinge were formulated. A computer aided analysis and parametric design program of the half circular-elliptical hybrid flexure hinge was developed by VC++6.0. A specific half circular-elliptical hybrid flexure hinge wa...

A Trigonometric Shear Deformation Theory (TSDT) for the analysis of isotropic plate, taking into account transverse shear deformation effect as well as transverse normal strain effect, is presented. The theory presented herein is built upon the classical plate theory. In this displacement-based, trigonometric shear deformation theory, the in-plane displacement field uses sinusoidal function in ...