Traditional fracture testing in the field of athletic training relies heavily on subjective responses of the athlete. Percussion and compression type tests rely on the athlete stating an increase in pain which represents a positive symptom of a possible fracture. The tuning fork and stethoscope method relied purely on a subjective assessment from the examiner. The purpose of the study was to determine if the use of a 128Hz tuning fork and stethoscope were effective evaluation tools in the assessment of possible fractures as compared to the traditional fracture tests that are used in the athletic training field. A vibrating 128 Hz tuning fork was placed on the bone/area where swelling was minor to facilitate good cortical bone contact. Then the conical bell of a stethoscope was placed on the opposite end on the bone or bones. A diminished sound arising from the injured bone as compared to the uninjured represented a positive sign for a possible fracture. Traditional fracture testing was performed and noted. An x-ray, diagnosed by an orthopedic physician, supported the validity of the tuning fork and traditional fracture testing methods. The attempt was to see what testing method, the tuning fork and stethoscope or traditional fracture testing, was a more valid evaluation tool when it comes to fractures. This study was performed at a university's athletic training room and a local orthopedic center. The study consisted of any subject between the ages of 18-85 that presented with a suspected fracture at either testing facilities. The current study examined 37 male and female subjects whose age ranged from 18-85 years old. The long bones that were tested in this research were as follows: the phalanges of the hand and foot, metacarpals, metatarsals, humerus, radius, ulna, fibula (including the lateral malleolus), and tibia (including the medial malleolus). The tuning fork and stethoscope was shown to be an effective and valid tool for evaluating possible fractures by yielding a success rate of 89.2% when compared to an x-ray. The percussion and compression fracture testing methods yielded only a success rate of 67.6% and 64.9% respectively. / Ph. D.

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abstract: The accurate and fast determination of organic air pollutants for many applications and studies is critical. Exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) has become an important public health concern, which may induce a lot of health effects such as respiratory irritation, headaches and dizziness. In order to monitor the personal VOCs exposure level at point-of-care, a wearable real time monitor for VOCs detection is necessary. For it to be useful in real world application, it requires low cost, small size and weight, low power consumption, high sensitivity and selectivity. To meet these requirements, a novel mobile device for personal VOCs exposure monitor has been developed. The key sensing element is a disposable molecularly imprinted polymer based quartz tuning fork resonator. The sensor and fabrication protocol are low cost, reproducible and stable. Characterization on the sensing material and device has been done. Comparisons with gold standards in the field such as GC-MS have been conducted. And the device’s functionality and capability have been validated in field tests, proving that it’s a great tool for VOCs monitoring under different scenarios. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Chemical Engineering 2017

The mathematical characterization of the sound of a musical instrument still follows Schumann’s laws [1]. According to this theory, the resonances of the instrument body, “the formants”, filter the oscillations of the sound generator (e.g., strings) and produce the characteristic “timbre” of an instrument. This is a strong simplification of the actual situation. It applies to a point source and does not distinguish between a loudspeaker and a three-dimensional instrument. In this work we investigate Finite-Element-based numerical simulations of eigenfrequencies and eigenmodes of a tuning fork in order to capture the oscillation behavior of its eigenfrequencies. We model the tuning fork as an elastic solid body and solve an eigenvalue equation derived from a system of coupled equations from linear elasticity theory on an unstructured three-dimensional grid. The eigenvalue problem is solved using the preconditioned inverse iteration (PINVIT) method with an efficient geometric multigrid (GMG) preconditioner. The latter allows us to resolve the tuning fork with a high resolution grid, which is required to capture fine modes of the simulated eigenfrequencies. To verify our results, we compare them with measurement data obtained from an experimental modal analyses of a real reference tuning fork. It turns out that our model is sufficient to capture the first eight eigenmodes of a reference tuning fork, whose identification and reproduction by simulation is novel to the knowledge of the author.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第18588号 / 工博第3949号 / 新制||工||1607(附属図書館) / 31488 / 京都大学大学院工学研究科マイクロエンジニアリング専攻 / (主査)教授 田畑 修, 教授 西脇 眞二, 准教授 土屋 智由, 教授 引原 隆士 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DFAM

<p> A proposal is made to extend the present capabilities of gun-launched rocket vehicles to include attitude control during flight. The problems involved are stated and design criteria for possible sensors are listed. A review of presently available sensing devices is made and rejection of unsuitable instruments is based on fundamentals of their design and operation. </p> <p> A report is made upon the sensors which most adequately fulfil the harsh environmental requirements of gun-launch. These sensors are infrared-horizon sensors and a tuning fork vibratory gyroscope. A preliminary design is given for the tuning fork gyroscope a well as a summary of fundamental design considerations. </p> / Thesis / Master of Engineering (ME)

[pt] A caracterização de cristais osciladores de quartzo (QTF) foi realizada nesta dissertação com o objetivo de implementá–los como sensores de um microscópio de força atômica (AFM). O QTF possui várias vantagens em relação aos cantilevers tradicionais de silício. Utilizado em modos dinâmicos de operação do AFM, o QTF possui maior fator de qualidade e rigidez, permitindo melhor sensibilidade em força e o uso de baixas amplitudes de oscilação para imageamento do que cantilevers tradicionais. Nesse trabalho, parâmetros mecânicos e elétricos do QTF foram medidos. Além disto, um estudo da influência da adição de massa nos braços do QTF foi realizado. Para a implementação do QTF no AFM, um sistema de feedback composto de um amplificador lock–in e um amplificador diferencial foi desenvolvido e testado. Adicionalmente, um novo cabeçote para o microscópio foi desenvolvido para adaptar o QTF ao microscópio. / [en] The characterization of quartz tuning forks (QTF) was performed in this dissertation, aiming to implement them as sensors at an atomic force microscope (AFM). The QTF has several advantages over traditional silicon cantilevers. Used in dynamic AFM modes, the QTF has higher quality factor and stiffness, allowing better force sensitivity and lower amplitudes of oscillation for imaging than traditional cantilevers. In this work, electrical and mechanical parameters of the QTF were obtained. Furthermore, a study of the influence of additional mass on the QTF prongs was performed. To implement the QTF at the AFM, a feedback system composed of a lock–in amplifier and a differential amplifier was developed and tested. Additionally, a new microscope head was designed to adapt the QTF to the microscope.

This thesis reports development of three different high performance, low g-sensitive micromachined gyroscopes having single, double, and quadruple masses. The single mass gyroscope (SMG) is developed for comparison of its performance with the double mass gyroscope (DMG) and quadruple mass gyroscope (QMG). DMG is a tuning fork gyroscope, diminishing the effects of unpredictable g-loadings during regular operation, while QMG is a twin tuning fork gyroscope, developed for a uniform and minimized g-sensitivity. DMG and QMG use novel ring spring connections for merging the masses in drive modes, providing uniform and anti-phase drive mode vibrations that minimize the cross-coupling and the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic accelerations on the scale factor and bias levels of the gyroscopes. The sense mode of each mass of the multi-mass gyroscopes is designed to have higher resonance frequencies than that of the drive mode for possible matching requirements, and these sense modes have dedicated frequency tuning electrodes for frequency matching or tuning. Detailed performance simulations are performed with a very sophisticated computer model using the ARCHITECT software. These gyroscopes are fabricated using a standard SOIMUMPs process of MEMSCAP Inc., which provides capacitive gaps of 2 &micro / m and structural layer thickness of 25 &micro / m. Die sizes of the fabricated gyroscope chips are 4.1 mm x 4.1 mm for the single mass, 4.1 mm x 8.9 mm for the double mass, and 8.9 mm x 8.9 mm for the quadruple mass gyroscope. Fabricated gyroscopes are tested with dedicated differential readout electronics constructed with discrete components. Drive mode resonance frequencies of these gyroscopes are in a range of 3.4 kHz to 5.1 kHz. Depending on the drive mode mechanics, the drive mode quality (Q) factors of the fabricated gyroscopes are about 300 at atmospheric pressure and reaches to a value of 2500 at a vacuum ambient of 50 mTorr. Resolvable rates of the fabricated gyroscopes at atmospheric pressure are measured to be 0.109 deg/sec, 0.055 deg/sec, and 1.80 deg/sec for SMG, DMG, and QMG, respectively. At vacuum, the respective resolutions of these gyroscopes improve significantly, reaching to 106 deg/hr with the SMG and 780 deg/hr with the QMG, even though discrete readout electronics are used. Acceleration sensitivity measurements at atmosphere reveal that QMG has the lowest bias g-sensitivity and the scale factor g sensitivity of 1.02deg/sec/g and 1.59(mV/(deg/sec))/g, respectively. The performance levels of these multi-mass gyroscopes can be even further improved with high performance integrated capacitive readout electronics and precise sense mode phase matching.