Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Modeling And Control Of A Flexible Ionic Polymer Metal Composite(Ipmc) Actuator For Underwater Propulsion, Shivakanth Gutta

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The goal of this research is to model and control the underwater vehicle propelled by IPMC actuator. IPMC consists of an ionic membrane sandwiched between two metallic electrodes. When an external voltage is applied, IPMC undergoes large deformation due to transport of ions. Due to its ability to work in aqueous environments, it can be used for developing small scale underwater vehicles.

First, Finite element approach is used to describe the dynamics of the both single and segmented IPMC actuator. In the approach presented, each element is attached with a local coordinate system that undergoes rigid body motion along with …

Thrust-Vector Control, Dane Larkin, Harsimran Singh

Mechanical Engineering

Mission Statement

The purpose of this project is to design, build, and test a thrust-vectoring rocket nozzle which will aid in controlling the trajectory of a solid-booster rocket. The system prototype must meet the requirements set forth by the sponsoring enterprise.

The Enterprise

Stellar Exploration is a small space systems technology company located in San Luis Obispo, CA. Stellar Exploration is currently seeking a thrust-vectoring system for its Silver Sword rocket.

Project Scope

The design and analysis portion of this project accounted for a system that would be mounted on to a rocket for operational flight. Therefore, this team has …

Application Of Active Magnetic Force Actuator For Control Of Flexible Rotor System Vibrations, Volodymyr Mykhaylyshyn

ETD Archive

The purpose of this work was to develop and experimentally demonstrate a novel approach to minimize lateral vibrations of flexible rotor. The applied feed forward control approach employed magnetic force actuator to inject a specially designed force to counteract the rotor unbalance force. By specific selection of frequency and phase as functions of the rotor running speed and rotor natural frequency, the proposed simplified injection waveform has been shown to be effective both in reducing the rotor's vibrations and for hardware implementation. A model of the test rig was constructed using the finite element (FE) method and was validated using …