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Full-Text Articles in Applied Mechanics

Effect Of Material Viscoelasticity On Frequency Tuning Of Dielectric Elastomer Membrane Resonators, Liyang Tian Jun 2018

Effect Of Material Viscoelasticity On Frequency Tuning Of Dielectric Elastomer Membrane Resonators, Liyang Tian

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Dielectric elastomers (DEs) capable of large voltage-induced deformation show promise for applications such as resonators and oscillators. However, the dynamic performance of such vibrational devices is not only strongly affected by the nonlinear electromechanical coupling and material hyperelasticity, but also significantly by the material viscoelasticity. The material viscoelasticity of DEs originates from the highly mobile polymer chains that constitute the polymer networks of the DE. Moreover, due to the multiple viscous polymer subnetworks, DEs possess multiple relaxation processes. Therefore, in order to predict the dynamic performance of DE-based devices, a theoretical model that accounts for the multiple relaxation processes is …


Soft-Microrobotics: The Manipulation Of Alginate Artificial Cells, Samuel Sheckman May 2018

Soft-Microrobotics: The Manipulation Of Alginate Artificial Cells, Samuel Sheckman

Mechanical Engineering Research Theses and Dissertations

In this work, the approach to the manipulation of alginate artificial cell soft-microrobots, both individually and in swarms is shown. Fabrication of these artificial cells were completed through centrifugation, producing large volumes of artificial cells, encapsulated with superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles; these artificial cells can be then externally stimulated by an applied magnetic field. The construction of a Permeant Magnet Stage (PMS) was produced to manipulate the artificial cells individually and in swarms. The stage functionalizes the permanent magnet in the 2D xy-plane. Once the PMS was completed, Parallel self-assembly (Object Particle Computation) using swarms of artificial cells in complex …


Raman Spectroscopy Of The Skeleton Of The Coral Acropora Cervicornis, Zachary C. Shepard Jan 2018

Raman Spectroscopy Of The Skeleton Of The Coral Acropora Cervicornis, Zachary C. Shepard

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Coral reefs are an important element of marine ecosystem that are critical to maintain a healthy environment. Unfortunately, in recent years coral reefs are doing poorly and many in parts of the ocean are simply dying. Therefore, study of coral’s structural response to external loads could answer what will happen with their structures, while they exhibit different types of loading. Therefore, the proposition of using in-situ micro-Raman spectroscopy to study skeletons of Acropora cervicornis was used. Coral skeleton samples I subjected to mechanical loading studied their vibrational properties by exciting the material with 532nm visible light. A uniaxial compressive load …