The performance of smart structures depends on the electromechanical behaviour of piezoelectric actuators and the bonding condition along the interface, which connects the actuators and the host structures. This paper provides a theoretical study of the effect of partially debonded adhesive layers on the coupled electromechanical behaviour of piezoelectric actuators subjected to high-frequency ...

Current active vibration suppression systems usually consist of piezoelectric extension actuators bonded to the surface or embedded within the structure. The use of piezoelectric shear actuators/sensors has been proposed as an alternative, where the electric field is applied perpendicular to the direction of polarization to cause shear deformation of the material. We present an exact analysis a...

− A new type of actuator is presented where Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) wires are embedded within artificial “blood vessels.” Fluid flowing through vessels allows the SMA wires to be rapidly cooled by convection, resulting in greater bandwidth than ordinarily possible. Combinations of electric, fluidic, and thermal inputs can be used to control the contraction/extension of the SMA wires within the...

Core–shell microcapsules capable of regulating the release profile of encapsulated molecules are developed. These microcapsules uniquely embed miniature actuators in their liquid core. The internal actuators are made of stimuli-responsive smart hydrogel beads. The embedded hydrogel beads swell in response to external electric fields, regulating the internal pressure of the liquid core and thus ...

In the last years we have witnessed a growing interest, by the academic community and the automotive industry, in the multi-motor electric vehicles. The electrical nature of the propulsion is going to stress even more an increasing insertion of electronic devices in the vehicles. Furthermore, carmakers are performing research and already presented some vehicles based on the concept of X-By-Wire...

This study demonstrates a technology, ‘‘Piezoelectric Windmill’’, for generating the electrical power from wind energy. The electric power-generation from wind energy is based on piezoelectric effect and utilizes the bimorph actuators. Piezoelectric Windmill consists of piezoelectric actuators arranged along the circumference of the mill in the cantilever form. Using the camshaft gear mechanism...

Original scientific paper Fluidic Muscle produced by Festo Company is the most used and investigated type of pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM) actuators which can be characterized such as powerful, dynamic (even 6000 N, 50 m/s), judder-free and resistant to dirt and dust, therefore these actuators are widely used in industrial environment besides electric motors or hydraulic actuators. One of t...

This paper introduces a Z-shaped thermal microactuator for in-plane motion, which could be complementary to the well-established comb drives and V-shaped thermal actuators. The Z-shaped actuators share many features in common with the V-shaped ones, but offer certain advantages such as smaller feature size and larger displacement. They also offer a large range of stiffness and output force that...

The design procedure should consist of selecting the switching manifold with sliding mode in order to design the desired dynamics of the motion equation and finding a discontinuous control function such that the state reaches the manifold and sliding mode exists in that manifold. The design of control for systems given by (1) can be easily performed for systems in the so-called Regular form. If...

Robots are still outperforming humans regarding their efficiency and dexterity. On the other hand, however, muscles are more efficient and have a higher power to weight ratio than electric motors. As a consequence, among others, manipulators for human robot interaction in industry or service applications have a low payload to weight ratio and a low energy efficiency. Therefore, we developed a n...