Abstract The main objective of this thesis was to use and combine Finite Element Method (FEM) and small signal equivalent circuit models in actuator and energy harvesting design and to study the dynamics of the said designs. The work is divided into four different sections. In the first section, the small signal parameters are derived for a pre-stressed piezoelectric actuator using a series of measurements. In addition, the tunability of the resonance frequency using mass and series capacitors is investigated. In the second section, a piezoelectric Fabry Perot Interferometer actuator is simulated using FEM and the small signal parameters are derived using FEM simulations. The modelled results are compared with the actual measurements and the resonance frequency is found to differ by only 0.8 percent from the measured values when the mirror is attached to the actuator. In the third section a piezoelectric wide band energy harvester is developed with multiple beam topology. Two different designs are compared, one produced using the conventional PZT-steel structure and one with a PZT-LTCC structure. The final section presents an FEM model for a shoe mounted energy harvester and concentrates on the modelling of walking dynamics in FEM. The simulation results are compared to actual measurements and the simulated power values are found to differ by only 7% when the cymbal stroke is below 1.3 mm. The generated model is also expandable to other types of energy harvesters and the methods developed can be used in a variety of different energy harvesting simulations and harvester development. The results show that the equivalent circuit approach together with FEM modelling is a powerful tool in the dynamics design of piezoelectric actuators and energy harvesters. / Tiivistelmä Väitöstyön päätavoitteena oli yhdistää elementtimenetelmät (FEM) ja piensignaalimallit aktuaattorien ja energiankorjuukomponenttien suunnittelussa ja tutkia niiden dynamiikkaa. Työ on jaettu neljään eri osaan. Ensimmäisessä osassa piensignaalimallit johdettiin pietsosähköisestä aktuaattorista mittausten avulla. Lisäksi resonanssitaajuuden muuttamista tutkitaan massan ja sarjaan kytketyn kapasitanssin avulla. Toisessa osassa simuloidaan pietsosähköistä Fabry Perot interferometria käyttäen elementtimenetelmää. Lisäksi komponentin piensignaalimalli luodaan käyttäen simulointimallia. Lopuksi piensignaalimallin ja prototyypin mittaustuloksia verrataan. Mallin resonanssitaajuus poikkeaa mitatusta vain 0.8 %, kun aktuaattoriin on kiinnitetty peili. Kolmannessa osassa kehitetään ja verrataan toisiinsa kahta erilaista laajakaistaista monipalkkista pietsosähköistä energian korjuukomponenttia. Toinen komponenteista on toteutettu perinteisellä PZT-teräs rakenteella ja toinen yhteissintratulla PZT-LTCC rakenteella. Viimeisessä osassa luodaan simulaatio malli kenkään asennetulle cymbal tyyppiselle pietsosähköiselle energian korjuukomponentille ja kävelyn dynamiikkaa tutkitaan. Luotua mallia verrataan prototyypin mittaustuloksiin ja simuloitu energian tuotto poikkeaa vain 7 % alle 1.3 mm puristusliikkeellä. Tulokset osoittivat, että piensignaalimallin ja elementtimenetelmän yhdistäminen on tehokas apu pietsosähköisten aktuaattorien ja energiankorjuukomponenttien dynamiikan suunnittelussa.

Quartz crystal microbalances (QCM) are acoustic wave sensor systems which are used majorly for vapor and liquid sensing. QCM come under the category of thickness shear mode (TSM) sensors. There are several methods to study organic vapor sensing; the QCM method is the one that offers the highest sensitivity and generates the most data. Solubilities of benzene, dichloroethane, chloroform and dichloromethane in polyethylene glycol (PEG), polycaprolactone (PCL), and several di-block PEG/PCL copolymers at 298.15 K are reported. There are literature data available for most of the solvents in the homopolymers PEG and PCL but no literature data is available for the copolymers PEG (5000)/ PCL (1000), PEG (5000)/ PCL (5000) and PEG (1000)/ PCL (5000). Activity vs. weight fraction data was collected using a quartz crystal microbalance and are adequately represented by the Flory-Huggins model within experimental error. The data were reported using a QCM in a newly designed flow system constructed in the lab. The working apparatus consisted of a computer loaded with LabVIEW software for data selection, a quartz crystal cell, four bubblers for solvents, a phase lock oscillator, a frequency counter, and a temperature controlled vapor dilution system. In this thesis, the proof for a working model of the QCM apparatus was reported through a test-case. The test case consists of a study that details the solubility of the polyisobutylene (PIB) polymer in benzene at 298.15 K which was then compared to previous work published in the literature.

Abstract It has been over a century since the Curie brothers discovered the piezoelectric effect. Since then our knowledge about this phenomena has been constantly growing, accompanied by a vast increase in its applications. Modern piezoelectric devices, especially those meant for use in personal equipment, can often have complicated shapes and electric circuits; therefore, a suitable and cost effective packaging method is needed. The recent introduction of self-constrained Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramic (LTCC) characterized by virtually no planar shrinkage has pushed the limits of this technology a step further. The practical lack of dimension change between “green” state and sintered ceramic has not only improved the design of multilayer smart packages but also allowed the embedding of other bulk materials within the LTCC and their co-firing in one sintering process. This thesis introduces a novel method of seamlessly embedding piezoelectric bulk structures in LTCC by co-firing or bonding with adhesive. Special attention is paid to the multistage lamination and post-firing poling of the piezoelectric ceramics. Examples of several structures from the main areas of piezoelectric applications are presented as proof of successful implementation of the new technique in the existing production environment. The performance of the structures is investigated and compared to structures manufactured using other methods. Integration of bulk piezoelectric structures through co-firing is a new technique with a wide area of applications, suitable for mass production using existing process flow. / Tiivistelmä Curien veljekset havaitsivat pietsosähköisen ilmiön jo yli sata vuotta sitten. Ilmiöön liittyvä tutkimustieto ja erityisesti siihen perustuvien sovellusten määrä on nykyisin valtava. Uusissa pietsosähköisissä komponenteissa ja varsinkin niissä, jotka on tarkoitettu henkilökohtaisissa laitteissa käytettäviksi, muodot samoinkuin elektroniikapiirit voivat olla monimutkaisia. Siksi tarvitaan tarkoituksenmukaista ja hinnaltaan edullista laitteen pakkausmenetelmää. Hiljattain kehitetyt itseohjautuvat matalan lämpötilan yhteissintattavat keraamit (LTCC), joiden planaarinen kutistuma on lähes olematon, ovat lisänneet LTCC-teknologian sovellusmahdollisuuksia. Muotoon valmistetun sintraamattoman ja lopullisen sintratun keraamin dimensioiden yhtäsuuruus ei ole ainoastaan parantanut älykkäiden monikerrospakkausten suunnittelua, vaan mahdollistanut myös erilaisten materiaalien ja komponenttien upottamisen LTCC-rakenteisiin ja niiden yhteissintrauksen. Väitöstyössä esitetään uusi menetelmä pietsosähköisten bulkrakenteiden upottamiseksi saumattomasti LTCC-rakenteisiin yhteissintrauksella tai liimaliitoksella. Erityistä huomiota on kiinnitetty monivaiheiseen laminointiin ja sintrauksen jälkeiseen pietsosähköisten keraamien polarisointiin. Työssä on esitetty esimerkkejä useista rakenteista pietsosähköisten sovellusten pääalueilta osoituksena uuden tekniikan onnistuneesta käyttöönottamisesta nykyisessä valmistusympäristössä. Tutkittujen uusien rakenteiden ja muilla menetelmillä valmistettujen rakenteiden ominaisuuksia on verrattu keskenään. Pietsosähköisten bulkrakenteiden integroiminen yhteissintrauksella on uusi tekniikka, joka mahdollistaa lukuisia sovelluksia ja soveltuu massatuotantoon olemassa olevilla prosseintilaitteistoilla.

Fuel mixture formation and spray characteristics are crucial for the advancement of Gasoline Compression Ignition (GCI) engine. For investigations of spray characteristics, a high-pressure high-temperature spray chamber with constant volume has been designed, tested and commissioned at CCRC, KAUST. Back light illumination technique has been applied to investigate the macroscopic spray properties of an outwardly opening piezoelec- tric injector. Three parameters including injection pressure, ambient pressure, and ambient temperature have been involved. A total of 18 combinations of experimental conditions were tested under non-reactive conditions. Through qualitative analysis of spray morphology under different operating conditions, an apparent distinction of spray morphology has been noticed. Spray morphology and propagation have shown strong dependencies on ambient pressure and ambient tempera- ture while injection pressure has a negligible effect on spray shape. Increasingly compact and bushier spray patterns were observed in the cases of high ambient pressure due to in- creasing aerodynamic drag force on spray boundary. It should also be noted that ambient temperature plays a fairly important role in fuel evaporation rate. At 200 °C, oscillating and considerably short spray shape was produced. Also, circumferential ring-like vortices and distinctive string-like structures have been identified for the fuel spray exiting this hollow cone injector. It has been observed that high ambient pressure conditions (Pamb = 4 bar and 10.5 bar) are favorable to the vortices generation, which has also been reported in previous literature. The quantitative description of macroscopic spray properties reveals that ambient pres- sure and ambient temperature are found to be the most influential parameters on liquid penetration length. The rise of ambient pressure results in considerably shorter liquid pen- etration length. Ambient temperature also appears to be a very effective factor of reducing penetration length. Injection pressure contributes to a notable increase of liquid penetra- tion length under ambient pressure of 1 atm. However, the influence of injection pressure is substantially reduced under ambient pressures of 4 bar and 10.5 bar, which indicates that ambient pressure exerts much stronger influence than injection pressure on liquid penetra- tion length. Furthermore, it has been revealed that the increase of injection pressure and ambient pressure are the predominant sources contributing to the enlargement of spray cone angle. The effect of injection pressure on spray cone angle has been amplified by the increase of ambient pressure. With increasing ambient pressure, the penetration of injected fuel tends to propagate axially in a much slower manner that leads to wider fuel distribution in the radial direction. Ambient temperature exerts a similar influence on spray cone angle as on liquid penetration length. The spray cone angle experiences a noticeable decline when ambient gas is increased to 200 °C.

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Dissertation (M Eng (Mechanical Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2000. / Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering / unrestricted

Des céramiques piézoélectriques sans-plomb de composition (CazBa1-z)(Ti1-x-wCoxNbw)O3- ont étésynthétisées e Li2O ou de Li2CO3des matériaux denses à une température de 1100 °C au lieu des 1300 °C usuellement requis pour fritter leBaTiO3.fonctionnelles : le coefficient piézoélectrique d33 et le coefficient de couplage kp atteignent respectivement255 pC/N et 43,5%. De plus, un recuit sous O2 des échantillons dopés au cobalt mène à un d33 = 265 pC/Net à un kp = 42,8%.En fonction de la nature des dopants, un caractère « doux » ou « dur » a été observé dans les céramiquespiézoélectriques. Le dopage par les ions Co/Li mène à un comportement « dur » et provoque desphénomènes de vieillissement. On observe ainsi pour un BT:Co,Li vieilli, un cycle P = f(E) àdouble boucle ou déformé pour des échantillons respectivement non-polarisés ou polarisés. Les cyclescours du temps. Ce champ inCes phénomènes particuliers sont dus à la formation de dipôle de défaut (MTi VO )x causée parin, les grandes valeurs ducoefficient de qualité mécanique (Qmsynthétisées vis-à-vis de fortes contraintes, mécanique ou électrique. Cela rend ces matériaux compétitifscomparés au PZT 4 pour des applications de type transduction acoustique. / (CazBa1-z)(Ti1-x-wCoxNbw)O3- lead-free piezoelectric ceramics were prepared using solid-state reaction. Theuse of a Li2O or Li2CO3 sintering aid enables one to obtain dense ceramics at a temperature of 1100 °Cinstead of the 1300°C used for BaTiO3 in conventional sintering. Insertion of Li/Ca/Co/Nb in the perovskitestructure improves functional properties: for micrograin-size ceramics, a piezoelectric charge constant andelectromechanical coupling factor of d33 = 255 pC/N and kp = 43,5% were reached, respectively.Furthermore, a thermal annealing of the cobalt doped sample under O2 atmosphere led to d33 = 265 pC/Nand kp = 42,8%.Soft/hard characteristics of the piezoelectric ceramics are observed depending on the dopant ions. The Co/Liacceptor dopants lead to hard piezoelectric ceramics and aging phenomena. The aged BT:Co,Li exhibitsdouble loops and a distorted hysteresis cycle for non-poled and poled ceramics, respectively. Distortedhysteresis loops for BT:Co,Li show an increased internal bias field with aging time. Insertion of donordopants such as niobium ions significantly reduces the internal field. These behaviors are related to thepresence of defect dipoles (MTi VO )x due to the insertion of acceptor dopants in the B sites following theoxygen vacancies to equilibrate charge compensation. The high mechanical quality factors (Qm > 1000)obtained for the doped BaTiO3 ceramics affords stability against mechanical stress and electrical stress of upto 400 VRMS/mm, which makes these materials competitive with PZT4 for acoustic transducer applications.

This thesis proposes a control system to widen the bandwidth of piezoelectric transducers (PZTs) for vibration energy harvesting while extracting maximum power. A straightforward complex conjugate match achieves maximum power transfer only at a single frequency while requiring an impractically large inductance. The proposed system intends to address these problems. It incorporates a bi-directional DC/DC converter with feed-forward control to achieve a complex conjugate match over a wide range of frequencies.  Analysis of the proposed system and simulation results are presented to verify validity of the proposed method. / Master of Science

The aim of this thesis is to develop and investigate impact-based frequency up-conversion mechanisms to enhance the performance of the piezoelectric energy harvesters. Five different mechanisms are designed that use cantilever type piezoelectric transducers, and for each of them, mathematical models of the piezoelectric transducer are constructed by applying the discontinuous dynamics theory. The constructed mathematical models are analyzed to provide a deep understanding of the mechanical and electrical performance of the piezoelectric energy harvester, which enables us to optimize the system parameters to generate the maximum power. The numerical investigation illustrates that the impact-based frequency up-conversion mechanism can significantly improve the performance of the energy harvester.

The objective of this dissertation is to develop a mechanical model of a nonlinear piezoelectric energy harvesting system induced by Duffing oscillator and predict the periodic motions of such a nonlinear dynamical system under different excitation frequency. In this dissertation, analytical distributed-parameter electromechanical modeling of a piezoelectric energy harvester will be presented. The electromechanically coupled circuit equation excited by infinitely many vibration modes is derived. The governing electromechanical equations are reduced to ordinary differential equations in modal coordinates and eventually an infinite set of algebraic equations is obtained for the complex modal vibration response and the complex voltage response of the energy harvester beam. One single vibration mode is chosen and discussed. The periodic motions are obtained through an implicit mapping method with high accuracy, stability and bifurcations of periodic motions are determined by the eigenvalue analysis. Frequency-amplitude characteristics of periodic motions are achieved by the Fourier transform

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