Following several terrorist attacks that have occurred during this decade,
there is an urgent need to develop new technologies for the detection of highly
energetic materials that can represent an explosive hazard. In an effort to
contribute to the development of these new technologies, this work presents the
design aspects of a chip-scale calorimeter that can be used to detect an
explosive material by calorimetric methods. The aim of this work is to apply what
has been done in the area of chip-scale calorimetry to the screening of highly
energetic materials. The prototypes presented here were designed using
computer assisted design and finite element analysis tools. The design
parameters were set to satisfy the requirements of a sensor that can be
integrated into a portable system (handheld) for field applications. The design
approach consisted of developing a sensor with thick silicon membranes that
can hold micro-size samples and that can operate at high temperatures, while
keeping the cost of the sensor low. Contrary to other high resolution systems based on thin-film membranes, our prototypes exhibit a contribution from
addenda that is comparable to that from the sample, and hence they have lower
sensitivity. However, using thick membranes offers the advantage of producing
sensors strong enough for this application and that have significantly lower cost.
Once the prototypes were designed, the fabrication was performed using
standard microfabrication techniques. Finally, the operation of our prototypes
was demonstrated by conducting thermal analysis of different liquid and solid
samples.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/148451 |
| Date | 14 March 2013 |
| Creators | Carreto Vazquez, Victor 1976- |
| Contributors | Mannan, Dr. Sam M., Bukur, Dr. Dragomir B. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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