Engineering Commons^™

A Mems Pressure Sensor Using Electrostatic Levitation, Mohammad Mousavi, Mohammad Alzgool, Shahrzad Towfighian

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Applying electrostatic levitation force to the initially-closed gap-closing electrodes of our micro-electro- mechanical system (MEMS) creates multi actuation mechanisms, and opens a new world to the MEMS applications.

Electrostatic levitation allows us to measure physical quantities, such as air pressure, by exploiting pull-in instability and releasing. The beam starts from a pulled-in position by applying a voltage difference between two gap-closing electrodes. When enough voltage is applied to the side electrodes, the cantilever beam is released. At the release instant, electrostatic forces, restoring force, and surface force are applied to the cantilever. According to the experimental results of this work, …

Electrostatic Levitation: An Elegant Method To Control Mems Switching Operation, Mohammad Mousavi, Mohammad Alzgool, Shahrzad Towfighian

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Scholarship

This paper investigates the characteristics of a micro-switch that uses two side electrodes to open a normally closed switch. The side electrodes surround the xed electrode in the well-known gap-closing electrode configuration. The side electrodes can open a closed switch and be tuned to respond appropriately to outside forces. The combined electrode system dramatically improves the control of a standard gap-closing electrode configuration. In conventional switches, a DC voltage above a certain value closes the switch. To re-open the switch, the voltage difference is reduced to peel o the moving electrode. Currently the contact area is carefully designed to avoid …

Autonomous Shock Sensing Using Bi-Stable Triboelectric Generators And Mems Electrostatic Levitation Actuators, Mohammad Mousavi, Mohammad Alzgool, Shahrzad Towfighian

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Scholarship

This work presents an automatic threshold shock-sensing trigger system that consists of a bi-stable triboelectric transducer and a levitation-based electrostatic mechanism. The bi-stable mechanism is sensitive to mechanical shocks and releases impact energy when the shock is strong enough. A triboelectric generator produces voltage when it receives a mechanical shock. The voltage is proportional to the mechanical shock. When the voltage exceed a certain level, the initially pulled-in Microelectromechanical system (MEMS) switch is opened and can disconnect the current in a safety electronic system. The MEMS switch combines two mechanisms of gap-closing (parallel-plate electrodes) with electrostatic levitation (side electrodes) to …

Adventuring Into Complexity By Exploring Data: From Complicity To Sustainability, Tim Lutz

Northeast Journal of Complex Systems (NEJCS)

Problems of sustainability are typically represented by major present-day challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental and social injustice. Framed this way, sustainable lives and societies depend on finding solutions to each problem. From another perspective, there is only one problem behind them all, stated by Gregory Bateson as: “…the difference between how nature works and the way people think,” and complexity provides a way to define and approach this problem. I extend Edgar Morin’s conceptions of restricted and general complexity into pedagogy to address problems of simplicity and reductionist teaching. The proposed pedagogy is based on long …

Flocc: From Agent-Based Models To Interactive Simulations On The Web, Scott Donaldson

Northeast Journal of Complex Systems (NEJCS)

Agent-based modeling (ABM) is a computational technique wherein systems are represented through the actions and interactions of many individual entities (‘agents’) over time. ABM often attempts to elucidate the unpredictable, high-level behavior of systems through the predictable, low-level behavior of actors within the system. There are currently few software or frameworks for ABM that allow modelers to design and build interactive models on the web, for a wide audience as well as a scientifically literate audience well-versed in complexity, models, and simulations. Flocc is a novel framework for agent-based modeling written in JavaScript, the lingua franca programming language of the …

Network-Based Analysis Of Early Pandemic Mitigation Strategies: Solutions, And Future Directions, Pegah Hozhabrierdi, Raymond Zhu, Maduakolam Onyewu, Sucheta Soundarajan

Northeast Journal of Complex Systems (NEJCS)

Despite the large amount of literature on mitigation strategies for pandemic spread, in practice, we are still limited by naive strategies, such as lockdowns, that are not effective in controlling the spread of the disease in long term. One major reason behind adopting basic strategies in real-world settings is that, in the early stages of a pandemic, we lack knowledge of the behavior of a disease, and so cannot tailor a more sophisticated response. In this study, we design different mitigation strategies for early stages of a pandemic and perform a comprehensive analysis among them. We then propose a novel …

Are Terrorist Networks Just Glorified Criminal Cells?, Elie Alhajjar, Ryan Fameli, Shane Warren

Northeast Journal of Complex Systems (NEJCS)

The notions of organized crime and terrorism have an old and rich history around the globe. Researchers and practitioners have been studying events and phenomena related to these notions for a long time. There are pointers in the literature in which it is misleading to see the unfair comparison between terrorist and criminal networks with the argument that all actors involved in these networks are simply evil individuals. In this paper, we conduct a systematic study of the operational structure of such networks from a network science perspective. We highlight some of the major differences between them and support our …