Fabrication of polymer nanocomposites for application in luminescent solar concentrators

The integration of luminescent nanoparticles into transparent polymer matrices opens the way to affordable, scalable and efficient luminescent solar concentrators. A key challenge in the fabrication is to prevent agglomeration of the nanoparticles as this will drastically reduce the performance due to scattering effects. The incompatibility of...

Operational range of a ferrofluid pocket bearing

Ferrofluid bearings provide a cheap and passive alternative to contactless bearings such as magnetic bearings and fluid bearings. The absence of stick-slip and the low viscous friction make them interesting for high precision applications. Despite the theoretical models available in literature, the number of design rules for ferrofluid bearings...

3D Printed Soft Fluidic Actuator for an Assistive Hand Exoskeleton Device

In the following study, a new concept of an assistive hand exoskeleton device for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patients is presented. Due to the nature of this disease (causes progressive muscle degeneration from a young age of five years old), the requirements for such a device are very demanding, with extreme space and weight limitations,...

Design of a Setup for Modal Testing of Micro-Cantilevers Immersed in Liquid

To facilitate research on the dynamics of micro-cantilevers immersed in liquid, a modal test setup was designed. Modal testing is a powerful form of dynamic testing whereby the system's natural frequencies, modal masses, modal damping ratios, mode shapes, and weight of each of these modes at a certain frequency are determined. Micro-cantilever...

Towards static balancing of compliant mechanical micro motion amplifiers: classifying compliant amplifiers & developing a preloading mems mechanism

At this moment there are more than 150 different designs of CMMA in existence. To aid the designer to develop a new or improved CMMA or choose what the design to use, a classification system is developed during the literature research. It is based on the geometrical advantage (GA) of the CMMA, and on the input and output port motion paths. Their...

Production, design and control of P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE) relaxor-ferroelectric actuators

The amount of research and development in smart materials is increasing every year. These smart materials offer a solution to integrated and distributed actuation and sensing. Pressure sensors, acoustic transducers, deformable mirrors, micro-robotics and stiffness control of flapping wings are some applicationswhere these smart materials show...