The Kelvin probe measures surface electrical potential without making physical contact with the specimen. It relies on capacitive coupling between an oscillating metal tip that is normal to a specimen's surface. Kelvin probes have been increasingly used to study surface and electrical properties of metals and semiconductors and are capable of detecting material surface potentials with submilliv...

Two difficulties have long troubled the field theory of dielectric solids. First, when two electric charges are placed inside a dielectric solid, the force between them is not a measurable quantity. Second, when a dielectric solid deforms, the true electric field and true electric displacement are not work conjugates. These difficulties are circumvented in a new formulation of the theory in thi...

Title of dissertation: MODELING, SIMULATING, AND CONTROLLING THE FLUID DYNAMICS OF ELECTRO-WETTING ON DIELECTRIC Shawn W. Walker, Doctor of Philosophy, 2007 Dissertation directed by: Professor Benjamin Shapiro Department of Aerospace Engineering and Professor Ricardo H. Nochetto Department of Mathematics This work describes the modeling and simulation of a parallel-plate Electrowetting On Diele...

Glow discharge at atmospheric pressure using a dielectric barrier discharge can induce fluid flow, and operate as an actuator in flow control. In the present work, a modeling framework is presented to study the evolution and interaction of such athermal non-equilibrium plasma discharges in conjunction with low Mach number fluid dynamics. Under atmospheric pressure, the discharge can be simulate...

Recently, dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) have gathered interest for soft robotics due to their low cost, light weight, large strain, low power consumption, and high energy density. However, developing reliable, compliant electrodes for DEAs remains an ongoing challenge due to issues with fabrication, uniformity of the conductive layer, and mechanical stiffening of the actuators caused by...

Generally speaking, seismoelectric modeling is a prospecting method based on seismic and electromagnetic waves, in which waves generated by a seismic source at the boundary of the two environments generate a relative fluid-solid motion formed as a result of antagonism between the elastic properties of the environment with the saturated fluid. This research has as its objective, a study of the e...

Dielectric heating is one of the most promising alternatives to conventional thermal treatment fluid foods. Higher efficiency and better uniformity radio frequency microwave processes have been proven successful in providing a similar or bacterial enzymatic inactivation liquid semi-solid foods while improving sensory nutritional qualities fresh product when compared pasteurization. However, fur...

The elongation of a drop of one dielectric fluid in another owing to the imposition of an electric field has previously been studied assuming that the interface is uncharged and the fluids at rest. For a steady field this is unrealistic, because however small the conductivity of either fluid the charge associated with steady currents must accumulate at the interface till the steady state is est...

The Kerr effect on vesicle-like droplets is described. We give a simple derivation of the Kerr constant for a dielectric fluid droplet immersed in another fluid, assuming that the droplet in an electric field becomes a prolate ellipsoid. The Kerr constant is evaluated also for a droplet covered by a membrane of finite thickness. The latter result differs significantly from the result by E. van ...