This investigation examines the role of carboxyl functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (COOH-MWCNTs) in the on- and off-axis flexure and the shear responses of thin carbon woven fabric composite plates. The chemically functionalized COOH-MWCNTs were used to fabricate epoxy nanocomposites and, subsequently, carbon woven fabric plates to be tested on flexure and shear. In addition to the n...

Flexure hinges inherently lose stiffness in supporting directions when deflected. In this paper a method is presented for optimizing the geometry of flexure hinges, while supporting stiffnesses are retained. These hinges are subjected to a load and deflected an angle of up to ±20°. The measure of performance is defined by the first unwanted eigenfrequency, which is closely related to the suppor...

This paper presents the derivation of the kinetostatic model of a flexure-based 3-RRR compliant micro-motion stage. The kinetostatic model has closed-form equations and flexure hinge compliances are one of the variables in the model. Researchers have an option of selecting the most suitable flexure hinge compliance equations to calculate the kinetostatics of the stage. Two cases are studied whe...

Flexure parallel mechanism (FPM) possessing selective actuation (SA) feature can be used as a micropositioner. The design of SA FPMs consists of type synthesis of parallel mechanisms possessing the required number of degree of freedom (DOF), geometric arrangement of the structure to obtain the SA and conversion of the kinematic mechanism into the flexure mechanism. This paper focuses on the SA ...

A nano-displacement sensing method for micro-opto-electro-mechanical-systems (MOEMS) is proposed. The method is based on a square attice photonic crystal (PC) made of dielectric silicon posts, mounted on a micro mechanical flexure. The flexure is fixed at one end and is free to ove at the other, to enable elastic deformations that, by being transferred to the photonic crystal array, modify its ...

In the quest to obtain a precise set of aircraft attitude parameters the modeling of wing flexure can become an important issue, especially when short baselines are being used. Previous techniques for the estimation of wing flexure have relied on a constrained Least Squares process to determine the displacement at each epoch before the estimation of the attitude parameters. As will be shown in ...

In this article, we propose a Flexure-FET (flexure sensitive field effect transistor) ultrasensitive biosensor that utilizes the nonlinear electromechanical coupling to overcome the fundamental sensitivity limits of classical electrical or mechanical nanoscale biosensors. The stiffness of the suspended gate of Flexure-FET changes with the capture of the target biomolecules, and the correspondin...

OBJECTIVES To assess the effect of interfacial surface roughness on the flexure strength and fracture mode and origin utilizing an in-vitro assessment of the clinical failure conditions expected for all-ceramic crowns and the connector area of fixed partial dentures (FPDs) using bilayered ceramic specimens tested in bi-axial flexure. METHODS Sets of 20 bilayered composite discs, with core:den...

This work investigates a new error source for angular velocity or attitude-based transfer alignment, which is caused by the coupling influence of dynamic flexure with ship angular motion. Most traditional studies do not consider this coupling error, as they often assume that dynamic flexure and ship angular motion are uncorrelated. However, the correlation between the dynamic flexure and the sh...

This paper presents the design of a selective-actuation flexure parallel mechanism that can provide three de-coupled micro-motions along the X-, Y and Z-axes. This mechanism can be used as an ultra-precision positioning system. The modeling of this flexure parallel mechanism is then established based on a pseudo-rigid-body model with consideration of deformation of the flexure member. The facto...