Electrical power transmission companies have been inspecting underground power cables in a time consuming and destructive way. The current methodology used by Manitoba Hydro, is to remove the conductive material in the center of the cable, cutting the cable into wafers leaving behind the insulating polymer material known as XLPE, the area where many faults occur, and inspect the wafers manually with a microscope. The main goal of this work was to find a methodology to detect these cable faults in a non-destructive way so that the quality of the cable may be assessed, and its remaining lifetime be estimated and return it to use if possible. Two XLPE power cable samples were tested. Three small holes were drilled in one XLPE cable. A capacitive transducer with center frequency of 802.8 kHz was applied for transmitting receiving signal. For each sample, 48 scans were collected. Based on ultrasound images, we were able to detect these faults in this XLPE material from the peaks of the samples corresponding to the XLPE area by setting a threshold to 0.08 volts. Also, this detection technique was improved by using fourth-order cumulants. / May 2016

O presente trabalho teve como objetivo determinar as vantagens e limitações do método geofísico de resistividade capacitiva na identificação de materiais enterrados de diferentes tamanhos e propriedades físicas e em diversas profundidades, localizados no Sítio Controlado de Geofísica Rasa II (SCGR-II), em frente ao IAG-USP. Para isso, a COMGAS, em parceria com o IAG-USP adquiriu o equipamento OhmMapper, possibilitando a aquisição de dados através do método capacitivo. Anteriormente à aquisição dos dados de campo, foram adquiridos os valores de resistividade aparente referentes ao background da área, para então realizar a instalação dos alvos. Após a instalação do sítio controlado, determinou-se a melhor técnica de aquisição em relação ao objetivo proposto, mostrando-se a técnica de aquisição contínua, com marcação de posição a cada 10m a mais adequada para o projeto em questão. Com a definição da melhor técnica de aquisição de dados, foi realizada a modelagem sintética dos alvos para que os resultados fossem confrontados com os obtidos em campo; a modelagem demonstrou que o método sintético utilizado (descrito no item 6.2) é capaz de definir contrastes de resistividade em profundidades inferiores a 0,8m e em alvos que apresentem dimensões de no mínimo 10cm. Para a avaliação do método capacitivo, realizou-se após a aquisição dos dados, uma análise 2D e 3D das anomalias. A análise dos dados reais demonstrou boa correlação com os ensaios sintéticos, exceto para alvos metálicos que apresentaram forte anomalia condutiva, enquanto que os mesmos alvos apresentaram anomalias resistivas no modelo criado. A análise das seções 2D do SCGR-II demonstrou boa resposta do método capacitivo utilizado para a caracterização geoelétrica de tambores de plástico cheios de água, tambores de aço vazios , cano metálico e tubos de cerâmica e PVC com água anomalias condutivas, tambores de plástico vazios, manilhas de concreto de grande diâmetro e vazias, caixa de areia acoplada a tubo vertical de PVC, vasos de cerâmica vazios, caixa com material cerâmico, caixa com brita de granito, tubos de PEAD vazios e tubos de polietileno e PVC de pequeno diâmetro e em até 0,5m de profundidade anomalias resistivas. Os dados 3D sumarizam as anomalias apresentadas nas diversas seções 2D, auxiliando na visualização dos contornos condutivos e resistivos do SCGR-II. Recomenda-se que a caracterização dos alvos pontuais seja, sempre que possível, realizada com o uso mútuo de no mínimo dois equipamentos distintos em suas técnicas e métodos, de forma a se evitar a interpretação precipitada das anomalias observadas e a reduzir os erros implícitos a interpretação, garantindo boa correlação com os dados diretos de campo. / The present work had as objective to determine the advantages and limitations of the capacitive resistivity method in the identification of buried materials with different dimensions, physical properties and located at different depths, at the Shallow Controlled Geophysical Site II (SCGR-II) IAG-USP. For this, the enterprise COMGAS, in partnership with the IAG-USP, acquired the capacitive equipment OhmMapper, enabling a data acquisition through the capacitive method. Previously to the acquisition of field data for the SCGR-II targets, the background apparent resistivity of the area were acquired, and then the targets were installed. After the installation of the targets, several acquisitions of test data were performed to define the best acquisition technique for the proposed objective, showing the technique of continuous acquisition, with mark spacing every 10m, the most appropriate for the project. After setting the best technique data acquisition, a synthetic modeling of the targets was done so that the results were compared with the field data; The modeling showed that the synthetic method used (described in item 6.2) is able to define resistivity contrasts in depths lower than 0.8m and in targets that have dimensions of at least 10cm. For the evaluation of the capacitive method, a 2D and 3D analysis of the anomalies was performed with the field data. The results showed a good correlation with the synthetic model, except to metallic targets that presented strong conductive anomaly, whereas the same targets at the modeling presented resistive anomalies. The analysis of the 2D sections at SCGR-II demonstrated that the capacitive method used for the geoelectric characterization got good responses for water filled plastic drums, empty steel drums, metal pipe and ceramic and PVC pipes with water - conductive anomalies, empty plastic drums, empty concrete sleeves with large diameter, sandbox coupled with a vertical PVC pipe, empty ceramic pots, box with ceramic material, box with crushed granite, empty PEAD pipes and tubes of polyester and small diameter PVC that is located up to 0.5m depth - resistive anomalies. The 3D data summarized the anomalies presented in the 2D sections, contributing to a better evaluation of the conductive and resistive contours observed on the sections of SCGR-II. It is recommended that the characterization of punctual targets, whenever possible, carried out with the mutual use of at least two different equipments which work with distinct techniques and methods, in order to avoid a hasty interpretation of the observed anomalies and to reduce the implicit errors in the interpretation, improving the geophysical correlation with direct field data.

O presente trabalho teve como objetivo determinar as vantagens e limitações do método geofísico de resistividade capacitiva na identificação de materiais enterrados de diferentes tamanhos e propriedades físicas e em diversas profundidades, localizados no Sítio Controlado de Geofísica Rasa II (SCGR-II), em frente ao IAG-USP. Para isso, a COMGAS, em parceria com o IAG-USP adquiriu o equipamento OhmMapper, possibilitando a aquisição de dados através do método capacitivo. Anteriormente à aquisição dos dados de campo, foram adquiridos os valores de resistividade aparente referentes ao background da área, para então realizar a instalação dos alvos. Após a instalação do sítio controlado, determinou-se a melhor técnica de aquisição em relação ao objetivo proposto, mostrando-se a técnica de aquisição contínua, com marcação de posição a cada 10m a mais adequada para o projeto em questão. Com a definição da melhor técnica de aquisição de dados, foi realizada a modelagem sintética dos alvos para que os resultados fossem confrontados com os obtidos em campo; a modelagem demonstrou que o método sintético utilizado (descrito no item 6.2) é capaz de definir contrastes de resistividade em profundidades inferiores a 0,8m e em alvos que apresentem dimensões de no mínimo 10cm. Para a avaliação do método capacitivo, realizou-se após a aquisição dos dados, uma análise 2D e 3D das anomalias. A análise dos dados reais demonstrou boa correlação com os ensaios sintéticos, exceto para alvos metálicos que apresentaram forte anomalia condutiva, enquanto que os mesmos alvos apresentaram anomalias resistivas no modelo criado. A análise das seções 2D do SCGR-II demonstrou boa resposta do método capacitivo utilizado para a caracterização geoelétrica de tambores de plástico cheios de água, tambores de aço vazios , cano metálico e tubos de cerâmica e PVC com água anomalias condutivas, tambores de plástico vazios, manilhas de concreto de grande diâmetro e vazias, caixa de areia acoplada a tubo vertical de PVC, vasos de cerâmica vazios, caixa com material cerâmico, caixa com brita de granito, tubos de PEAD vazios e tubos de polietileno e PVC de pequeno diâmetro e em até 0,5m de profundidade anomalias resistivas. Os dados 3D sumarizam as anomalias apresentadas nas diversas seções 2D, auxiliando na visualização dos contornos condutivos e resistivos do SCGR-II. Recomenda-se que a caracterização dos alvos pontuais seja, sempre que possível, realizada com o uso mútuo de no mínimo dois equipamentos distintos em suas técnicas e métodos, de forma a se evitar a interpretação precipitada das anomalias observadas e a reduzir os erros implícitos a interpretação, garantindo boa correlação com os dados diretos de campo. / The present work had as objective to determine the advantages and limitations of the capacitive resistivity method in the identification of buried materials with different dimensions, physical properties and located at different depths, at the Shallow Controlled Geophysical Site II (SCGR-II) IAG-USP. For this, the enterprise COMGAS, in partnership with the IAG-USP, acquired the capacitive equipment OhmMapper, enabling a data acquisition through the capacitive method. Previously to the acquisition of field data for the SCGR-II targets, the background apparent resistivity of the area were acquired, and then the targets were installed. After the installation of the targets, several acquisitions of test data were performed to define the best acquisition technique for the proposed objective, showing the technique of continuous acquisition, with mark spacing every 10m, the most appropriate for the project. After setting the best technique data acquisition, a synthetic modeling of the targets was done so that the results were compared with the field data; The modeling showed that the synthetic method used (described in item 6.2) is able to define resistivity contrasts in depths lower than 0.8m and in targets that have dimensions of at least 10cm. For the evaluation of the capacitive method, a 2D and 3D analysis of the anomalies was performed with the field data. The results showed a good correlation with the synthetic model, except to metallic targets that presented strong conductive anomaly, whereas the same targets at the modeling presented resistive anomalies. The analysis of the 2D sections at SCGR-II demonstrated that the capacitive method used for the geoelectric characterization got good responses for water filled plastic drums, empty steel drums, metal pipe and ceramic and PVC pipes with water - conductive anomalies, empty plastic drums, empty concrete sleeves with large diameter, sandbox coupled with a vertical PVC pipe, empty ceramic pots, box with ceramic material, box with crushed granite, empty PEAD pipes and tubes of polyester and small diameter PVC that is located up to 0.5m depth - resistive anomalies. The 3D data summarized the anomalies presented in the 2D sections, contributing to a better evaluation of the conductive and resistive contours observed on the sections of SCGR-II. It is recommended that the characterization of punctual targets, whenever possible, carried out with the mutual use of at least two different equipments which work with distinct techniques and methods, in order to avoid a hasty interpretation of the observed anomalies and to reduce the implicit errors in the interpretation, improving the geophysical correlation with direct field data.

The goal of this research is to improve the structure and dimension of the MEMS acoustic emission sensor. Acoustic emission sensor (AE sensor) based on the piezoelectric transducer is a well-developed technology in non-destructive testing that is widely used to determine permanent damage such as cracks and corrosions in buildings and structures. The AE sensor can be used to monitor cracks in structures and to check leakage in pressurized systems. The location of cracks in a structure or system leakage causes a high-frequency surface vibration while releasing ultrasonic energy. The frequency of this energy is typically between 30 kHz to 1MHz. The AE sensor can detect this high frequency transient acoustic wave. By using this AE sensor, the structure and pressurized system can be monitored to generate an evaluation report in order to facilitate maintenance and structure repair. Currently, the commercial AE sensor is bulky because it is made of a piezoelectric transducer. It also needs a lot of wires to connect with the pre-amplifier and signal conditioning systems. Because of the cost, brittleness and the volume of the commercial AE sensor, new affordable AE sensor technology is desired to replace the commercial AE sensor. The new AE sensor should be economical, small, and lightweight. The performance of the output signal should be comparable with the commercial AE sensor in terms of signal strength and signal to noise ratio. The MEMS AE sensors provide the potential solution to this problem. The MEMS AE sensors can overcome the problems of the commercial AE sensor. The MEMS AE sensor combines the pre- amplifier on the chip in a single package. Through the MEMS technology, the AE sensor can be manufactured in mass quantity and high quality. This study focuses on simulating and measuring the performance of the MEMS acoustic emission sensors. Through simulation, the capacitance value is influenced by the gap between the suspended membrane (top perforated metal plate), metal ground, and also influenced by the effective area of the perforated top layer. The perforation is introduced to reduce the squeeze film damping effect. Through measurement verification, the MEMS AE sensors have exhibited comparable performance before and after inclusion of the 3D printed package that serves as the housing for the completed sensor assembly. The C-V measurement is the key method to extract the capacitance value, which is the key parameter to determine the signal strength and signal to noise ratio for capacitive MEMS acoustic emission sensors. The damping coefficient is also the key factor to receive the time domain measurement data in a fashion that resemble the bulky commercial piezoelectric AE transducers.

On-chip vibrating MEMS resonators with high frequency-Q product on par with that of the off-chip quartz crystals have attracted lots of attention from both academia and industry for applications on sensing, signal processing, and wireless communication. Up to now, several approaches for monolithic integration of MEMS and transistors have been demonstrated. Vibrating micromechanical disk resonators which utilize electroplated nickel as the structural material along with either a solid-gap high-k dielectric capacitive transducer or a piezoelectric transducer have great potential to offer unprecedented performance and capability of seamless integration with integrated circuits. Despite the frequency drift problems encountered in early attempts to use nickel as a structural material in MEMS gyroscopes, this low temperature nickel electroplating technology is amenable to post-transistor planar integration. The nickel microstructure is formed through the photoresist molding and electroplating process which enables the microstructure to have extremely high aspect ratio while retaining the overall process temperature under 60ºC. This temperature is low enough to allow the RF MEMS devices to be fabricated directly on top of foundry IC chips, thus enabling post-transistor monolithic integration with minimum parasitics. In addition, the electroplating setup for nickel deposition can be much cheaper as compared to the other deposition facilities (e.g., PVD, CVD, etc). However, as the dimensions of the resonators are shrunk to µm range, several issues have come forth such as higher motional resistance and lower power handling ability. In order to reduce the motional resistance, high permittivity material is employed to form a solid capacitive gap instead of an air gap. As compared to the air gap, ease of the process, better stability and elimination of the particles are the additional benefits of using the solid gap. Therefore, an ultra-thin high-k dielectric layer with atomically controlled thickness down to sub-nm range can be deposited under 100ºC on the vertical sidewall of the device structure by using ALD processing technology. This enhances the efficiency of the capacitive transducer enormously, thus reducing the characteristic motional resistance of the device. This research project explored the idea of applying low temperature process of electroplated nickel and high-k solid-gap as well as partially-filled air-gap capacitive transducers. To further reduce the motional impedance, electromechanically-coupled resonator arrays have been implemented. Furthermore, the linearity of solid-gap versus partially-filled air-gap resonators has been studied through a modeling approach for RF applications. In the meanwhile, this work also investigated electroplated nickel as a structural material for piezoelectrically-transduced resonators to demonstrate piezoelectric-on-nickel resonators with low temperature process. The thin film piezoelectric resonators can achieve high resonance frequency when increasing the piezoelectric film thickness and scaling down the device size. However, the sputtered piezoelectric films have very low deposition rate which limits the thickness to a couple of microns or less. Moreover, the yield of piezoelectric resonators is restricted after the releasing process since the stress of the thin films usually causes the structural layer to buckle or fracture. Thus, the development of piezoelectric-on-substrate resonators is an alternative solution to resolve the aforementioned issues. The previous work has been done by using single crystal silicon or nano-crystalline diamond (NCD) as resonator structural materials due to their high acoustic velocity and low loss. However, the deposition temperature for thin film silicon and diamond is too high to be allowable thermal budget of ICs. Therefore, electroplated nickel is also a reasonable substitute for silicon and diamond substrates while realizing high frequency and moderate Q. Furthermore, it is observed that a localized annealing process through Joule heating can be adopted to significantly improve the effective mechanical quality factor for the ZnO-on-nickel resonators. This work successfully demonstrated the ZnO-on-nickel piezoelectrically-actuated MEMS resonators and resonator arrays with frequencies ranging from a few megahertz to 1.5 GHz by using IC compatible low temperature process.

Due to the recent rapid growth in personal mobile communication devices (smartphones, PDA's, tablets, etc.), the wireless market is always looking for new ways to further miniaturize the RF front-ends while reducing the cost and power consumption. For many years, wireless transceivers and subsystems have been relying on high quality factor (Q) passives (e.g., quartz crystal, ceramics) to implement oscillators, filters, and other key RF front-end circuitry elements. However, these off-chip discrete components occupy large chip area and require power-demanding interfacing circuits. As a result, a great deal of research effort has been devoted to the development of micromechanical resonators that are much more amenable to direct integration with integrated circuit (IC). Over the past few years, vibrating RF MEMS (Micro-Electrical-Mechanical-System) resonator technology has emerged as a viable solution, most notably, the film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) and surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonator, which have already been successfully implemented into commercial products. Undoubtedly, micromechanical resonators such as FBAR's can perform as well as if not better than its bulky conventional counterparts and facilitate the miniaturization and power reduction of conventional RF systems. However, in some cases when multi-frequency functionality on a single-chip is needed, FBAR simply won't deliver. To address this dilemma, contour-mode MEMS resonators have been developed and regarded as the most viable on-chip high-Q alternative. Unlike FBAR, contour-mode resonators use lateral dimensions to define its resonating frequencies, thus allowing for single-chip multi-frequency functionality. However, there is still room for improvement with respect to lowering the motional resistance of these devices to allow matching to 50 Ω electronics, while retaining low power consumption, small size, and simpler manufacturing process. This dissertation presents the design, fabrication, characterization and experimental analysis of two types of micro-mechanical resonators. Piezoelectrically- and electrostatically-transduced micromechanical resonators will both be shown. Both types of resonator will be fabricated in the same micro-fabrication run, which makes the comparison between the two much more impartial. The impacts of substrate's resistivity over the device performances will also be studied. Among the most significant results, this dissertation also presents several ideas that are enabled by the use of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer. A novel single-mask fabrication process that can produce capacitive resonator with nano-meter gap is demonstrated. The concept of dual-transduced micro-mechanical resonator is introduced by combining both piezoelectric and capacitive based resonators. Finally, frequency tuning of MEMS resonator are explored and detailed in this work as well.

Abstract By the advantage of technology innovation, the New Technology-Based Firms can not only win the competitive advantage but also make a great contribution to the national economic growth. (Rickne & Jacobsson,1996¡FAutio & Yli-Renko,1998¡FAcs,1999¡FFontes & Coombs,2001)¡C The technology of touch screens originated in military use, but it has been extensively applied to consumer, commercial, and public products. Among the touch screens, the capacitive touch screens are the best and the most expensive product. There used to be a single producer in the industry. But now, there is another company with the key manufacture technology and this company is also our study case. This study used the descriptive case-study method to analyze the strategic positioning of the New Technology-Based Firm in the industry. This study suggests the ¡§Focus Strategy¡¨ to be the strategic positioning of the new technology-based Firm in the capacitive touch screens industry, including the ¡§Cost Focus Strategy¡¨ for the cost advantage of customizing sizes and the ¡§Focus Differentiation Strategy¡¨ for the customization policy.

Capacitive radio frequency (RF) micro-electromechanical (MEMS) switches are among the most promising applications in MEMS systems. They have been introduced in the last 15-20 years as a practical alternative over traditional semiconductor switches. Low-cost RF MEMS switches are prime candidates for replacing the conventional GaAs Field Effect Transistors (FET) and pin diode switches in RF and microwave communication systems, mainly due to their low insertion loss, good isolation, linear characteristic and low power consumption. Unfortunately, their commercialization is currently hindered by reliability problems. The most important problem is charging of the dielectric, causing unpredictable device behavior. The charging of the dielectric has been found to be a complicated process and is currently under intense research. Developing a good analytical model that would describe accumulating of charges in the dielectric and their influence on the device behavior would be the main step to achieving more reliable switches. This work intends to theoretically and experimentally investigate the dielectric charging effects of capacitive RF MEMS switches with silicon nitride and silicon dioxide as the dielectric layer. For the silicon nitride study, both MEMS switches and MIM capacitors were fabricated, and their charging behaviors were analyzed and compared. Several different dielectric stoichiometries, deposition temperatures, and thicknesses were examined in order to understand the effects of each parameter on the charging mechanisms of the dielectric. The goal was to determine the most favorable deposition conditions to induce minimum dielectric charging in silicon nitride capacitive switches. The switches were measured over a wide temperature range and the temperaturedependent behavior of the dielectric was examined to characterize and study its charging behaviors. For the silicon dioxide MEMS switches, several different actuation mechanisms were systematically analyzed, and their effects on the dielectric charging of the switches were studied. A general model of distributed charge and air gap was adopted and further developed to better explain the charging behavior of MEMS switches. The goal was to provide a deeper insight into the trapping processes in dielectric materials and their corresponding time constants. This will in turn aid in better modeling of charging processes in capacitive RF MEMS switches.

<p>Isolationsdiagnostik är ett redskap som är av stor betydelse för underhållsoptimering av elektriska anläggningar. Ett av de möjliga mått på isolationsförsämring som kan användas i diagnosticeringssyfte är partiella urladdningar. Det här examensarbetet beskriver ett modelleringsförsök av ett resistivt-kapacitivt nätverk för simulering av partiella yturladdningar i Matlab. Tyvärr blev försöket misslyckat på grund av ett oväntat stort beroende av högspänningskapacitanser på ytresistiviteten. Ytterligare ett försök genomfördes i COMSOL Multiphysics, ett program baserat på finita elementmetoden ämnat för simuleringar av fysikaliska processer. Den huvudsakliga nackdelen med COMSOL Multiphysics modellen är långa simuleringstider. Det visade sig vara möjligt att simulera urladdningar i COMSOL Multiphysics. Här modellerades ytresistansen med hjälp av ett resistivt skikt. Yturladdningar simulerades genom att ändra det resistiva skiktets konduktivitet. Här upptäcks ytterligare ett problem: mycket långa simuleringstider vid användandet av olinjära konduktivitetsuttryck som beror på det elektriska fältet.</p><p>Alla simuleringar, både i Matlab och COMSOL Multiphysics, utfördes på en dator med Intel dual-core processor: 2.13 GHz, 0.99 GB of RAM.</p> / <p>Insulation diagnostics is a very important tool in optimization of electric installations’ maintenance. One of the possible measures of insulation deterioration that can be used for diagnostic purposes are partial discharges. This thesis work describes an attempt to model a resistive-capacitive network for simulating partial surface discharges in Matlab. Unfortunately this attempt proved to be a failure due to an unexpectedly considerable dependency of high voltage capacitances on surface resistivity. Another attempt described here was performed in COMSOL Multiphysics, a finite-element based program for simulation of physical processes. The main drawback with COMSOL Multiphysics model is long simulation times. It proved to be possible to simulate discharges in COMSOL Multiphysics. Here surface resistance was modeled with the help of a resistive layer. Discharges were simulated by changing conductivity of the mentioned layer. Here another problem was discovered: very long simulation times when using non-linear, electric field dependent expressions for conductivity.</p><p>All the simulations, both in Matlab and COMSOL Multiphysics, were performed on a computer with Intel dual-core processor: 2.13 GHz, 0.99 GB of RAM.</p>

In this thesis, two different experimental approaches to capacitive deionization (CDI) process are presented. In the first approach, transient system characteristics were analyzed to find three different operating points, first based on minimum outlet concentration, second based on maximum average adsorption rate and third based on maximum adsorption efficiency. These three operating points were compared in long term desalination tests. In addition, the effects of inlet stream salinity and CDI system size have been characterized to assess the feasibility of a commercial CDI system operating at brackish water salinity levels. In the second approach, the physical phenomena occurring inside a capacitive deionization system were studied by laser-induced fluorescence visualization of a “pseudo-porous” CDI microstructure. A model CDI cell was fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate and charged fluorophores were used to visualize the simultaneous electro migration of oppositely charged ions and to obtain in situ concentration measurements. / text