Distributed segmented piezo-electric actuators bonded to an elastic substructure and embedded inside a laminated composite material are modeled. Static mechanical models for various actuator geometries exciting both extension and flexure in the substructural material are developed. The flexural static models for both surface bonded and embedded cases are then integrated into a simple dynamic mo...

This paper reviews the applications of micro/nanoparticles in microfluidics device fabrication and analytical processing. In general, researchers have focused on two properties of particles--electric behavior and magnetic behavior. The applications of micro/nanoparticles could be summarized on the chip fabrication level and on the processing level. In the fabrication of microfluidic chips (chip...

We analyze, numerically by the finite element method, three-dimensional electromechanical deformations of a thick laminated plate with layers made of aluminum, a viscoelastic material and a piezoceramic (PZT). Two arrangements of layers are considered. In one case a central PZT layer is surrounded on both sides by viscoelastic layers and aluminum layers are on the outside surfaces. The PZT is p...

This letter describes a method to analyze electromechanical stability of dielectric elastomer actuators. We write the free energy of an actuator using stretches and nominal electric displacement as generalized coordinates, and pre-stresses and voltage as control parameters. When the Hessian of the free-energy function ceases to be positive-definite, the actuator thins down drastically, often re...

The Thirty Meter Telescope has 492 primary mirror segments, each incorporated into a Primary Segment Assembly (PSA), each of which in turn has three actuators that control piston, tip, and tilt, for a total of 1476 actuators. Each actuator has a servo loop that controls small motions (nanometers) and large motions (millimeters). Candidate actuators were designed and tested that fall into the ca...

This paper presents the surface piezomagnetoelasticity theory for size-dependent buckling analysis of an embedded piezoelectric/magnetostrictive nanobeam (PMNB). It is assumed that the subjected forces from the surrounding medium contain both normal and shear components. Therefore, the surrounded elastic foundation is modeled by Pasternak foundation. The nonlocal piezomagnetoelasticity theory i...

This work intends to extend the electromechanical characterisation of dielectric elastomer actuators. Planar actuators were realised with a 50 m-thick film of an acrylic elastomer coated with compliant electrodes. The isotonic transverse strain, the isometric transverse stress and the driving current, due to a 2 s high voltage impulse, were measured for four electrode materials (thickened elect...

Recently thin-film ferroelectrics such as Pb(Zr, Ti)O3 (PZT) and (Ba, Sr)TiO3 (BST) have been utilized to form advanced semiconductor and electronic devices including Ferroelectric Ran‐ dom Access memory(FeRAM), actuators composing gyro meters, portable camera modules, and tunable devices for smart phone applications and so on. Processing technology of ferro‐ electric materials is one of the mo...