The design, fabrication, and test of a new type of tactile display for the blind is reported. An array of piezoelectric extensional actuators vibrates in plane, and microfabricated scissor mechanisms convert the in-plane actuations into robust, higher-amplitude, out-of-plane vibrations. Information can be conveyed by varying the vibration patterns in space and time. Analytical and FEM models we...

This work describes an on-chip integrated micro-actuator device for slack-free carbon nanotube (CNT) resonators, improving frequency tunability and Q factor and to study non-linear mode interaction. The device fabricated on SOI wafer with low thermal budget (<600 K) encompasses a restricted symmetrical out-of-plane vibration and a stiff in-plane electro-thermal actuator with a displacement of ~...

Arbitrary waves incident on a solid embedded nanoparticle are studied. The acoustic vibrational frequencies are shown to correspond to the poles of the scattering cross section in the complex frequency plane. The location of the poles is unchanged even if the incident wave is nonplanar. A second approach approximating the infinite matrix as a very large shell surrounding the nanoparticle provid...

We report a simple, compact electronic speckle-pattern interferometer (ESPI) incorporating holographic optical elements (HOEs) for the study of out-of-plane vibration. Reflection and transmission HOEs provide reference and object beams in the interferometer. The alignment difficulties with conventional ESPI systems are minimized using HOEs. The time-average ESPI subtraction method is used to ge...

Attract-Integral ~uations are derived for the ~p~~nta~~on of in-plane as well as transverse displacements of shallow shells undergoing small, quasi-static or dynamic deformations. A combined boundary/interior element method for static stress, free-vibration, and transient response analyses of shallow shells, based on these integral equations, is derived. Numerical results are presented to demon...

Coupled vibration of a radially polarized piezoelectric cylindrical transducer is analyzed with the mechanical coupling coefficient method. The method has been utilized to analyze the metal cylindrical transducer and the axially polarized piezoelectric cylindrical transducer. In this method, the mechanical coupling coefficient is introduced and defined as the stress ratio in different direction...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The long-term effects of 6-weeks whole-body vibration, as a novel method of somatosensory stimulation, on postural control and activities of daily living were compared with those of 6 weeks of exercise therapy on music of the same intensity in the postacute phase of stroke. METHODS Fifty-three patients with moderate to severe functional disabilities were randomized with...

Mechanoreceptive hair-cells of the vertebrate inner ear have a remarkable sensitivity to displacement, whether excited by sound, whole-body acceleration or substrate-borne vibration. In response to seismic or substrate-borne vibration, thresholds for vestibular afferent fibre activation have been reported in anamniotes (fish and frogs) in the range -120 to -90 dB re 1g. In this article, we demo...

Large amplitude forced vibration behaviour of stiffened plates under harmonic excitation is studied numerically incorporating the effect of geometric non-linearity. The forced vibration analysis is carried out in an indirect way in which the dynamic system is assumed to satisfy the force equilibrium condition at peak excitation amplitude. Large amplitude free vibration analysis of the same syst...

A method is described for the measurement of basilar membrane (BM) vibration velocimeter (LDV). The instrumentation was coupled to a compound microscope which served to visualize reflective glass microbeads placed on the BM. The laser beam of the LDV was focused in the microscope object plane and positioned over the reflective bead. We show examples of frequency tuning curves and displacement i...