In this paper, a four-bar mechanism with two flexible links is proposed to be used in a micromechanical flying insect robot wing thorax design for stroke amplification. PZT5H and PZN-PT based unimorph actuators are utilized at the input link of the four-bar. The kinematics and dynamics of the proposed wing strcuture with two parallel four-bar mechanisms are analyzed, and DC forces generated at ...

Computational models of muscle generally lump the material properties of connective tissue, muscle fibers, and muscle fascicles together into one constitutive relationship that assumes a transversely isotropic microstructure. These models do not take into account how variations in the microstructure of muscle affect its macroscopic material properties. The goal of this work was to develop micro...

A three-dimensional micromechanics-based analytical model is developed to study thermo-mechanical properties of polymer composites reinforced with randomly distributed silica nanoparticles. Two important factors in nanocomposites modeling using micromechanical models are nanoparticle arrangement in matrix and interphase effects. In order to study these cases, representative volume element (RVE)...

Damage constitutive models based on micromechanical formulation and a combination of micromechanical and macromechanical damage criterions are presented to predict progressive damage in aligned and random fiber-reinforced composites. Progressive interfacial fiber debonding models are considered in accordance with a statistical function to describe the varying probability of fiber debonding. Bas...

Damage constitutive models based on micromechanical formulation and a combination of micromechanical and macromechanical effects were developed by the authors to predict progressive damage in aligned and randomly oriented carbon fiber polymer composites. The models are extended in order to account for the microcrack effect on the mechanical behavior of the composites. Progressive interfacial fi...

An overview of micromechanical models of strength and deformation behaviour of nanostructured and ultrafine grained metallic materials is presented. Composite models of nanomaterials, polycrystal plasticity based models, grain boundary sliding, the effect of nonequilibrium grain boundaries and nanoscale properties are discussed and compared. The examples of incorporation of peculiar nanocrystal...

Solving boundary value problems requires implementation of sufficiently robust constitutive models. Most models try to incorporate a great deal of phenomenological ingredients, but this refining often leads to overcomplicated formulations, requiring a large number of parameters to be identified. A powerful alternative can be found with micromechanical models, where the medium is described as a ...