A finite volume method and experimental study of a stator of a piezoelectric traveling wave rotary ultrasonic motor

Piezoelectric traveling wave rotary ultrasonic motors are motors that generate torque by using the friction force between a piezoelectric composite ring (or disk-shaped stator) and a metallic ring (or disk-shaped rotor) when a traveling wave is excited in the stator. The motor speed is proportional to the amplitude of the traveling wave and, in order to obtain large amplitudes, the stator is excited at frequencies close to its resonance frequency. This paper presents a non-empirical partial differential equations model for the stator, which is discretized using the finite volume method. The fundamental frequency of the discretized model is computed and compared to the experimentally-measured operating frequency of the stator of Shinsei USR60 piezoelectric motor.     

Performance evaluation of traveling wave ultrasonic motor based on a model with visco-elastic friction layer on stator

A new visco-elastic contact model of traveling wave ultrasonic motor (TWUSM) is proposed. In this model, the rotor is assumed to be rigid body and the friction material on stator teeth surface to be visco-elastic body. Both load characteristics of TWUSM, such as rotation speed, torque and efficiency, and effects of interface parameters between stator and rotor on output characteristic of TWUSM can be calculated and simulated numerically by using MATLAB method based on this model. This model is compared with that one of compliant slider and rigid stator. The results show that this model can obtain bigger stall torque. The simulated results are compared with test results, and found that their load characteristics have good agreement.     

An electric contact method to measure contact state between stator and rotor in a traveling wave ultrasonic motor

Performances of ultrasonic motor (USM) depend considerably on contact state between stator and rotor. To measure the contact state in a traveling wave ultrasonic motor (TWUSM), a special test method is necessary. This paper develops a new method named electric contact method to measure contact state of stator and rotor in traveling wave type USM. The effects of pre-load and exciting voltage (amplitude) of stator on contact state between stator and rotor are studied with this method. By a simulating tester of friction properties of TWUSM, the variations of stalling torque and no-load speed against the pre-load and the exciting voltage have been measured. The relative contact length that describes the contact characteristic of stator and rotor is proposed. The relation between the properties of TWUSM and the contact state of stator and rotor are presented. Additionally, according to a theoretical contact model of stator and rotor in TWUSM, the contact lengths at given conditions are calculated and compared with the experimental results.     

A traveling wave ultrasonic motor of high torque

A traveling wave ultrasonic motor of high torque with a new configuration is proposed in this paper. In the new design, a part of the motor serves as the stator. The rotor is the vibrator consisting of a toothed metal ring with piezoelectric ceramic bonded, which generates ultrasonic vibration. The rotor is in contact with the shell of motor and is driven by the friction between the rotor and the stator. This configuration not only removes the rotor in a conventional type of traveling wave ultrasonic motor but also changes the interaction between the rotor and the stator of the motor so that it improves the output performance of the motor. Although an electric brush is added to the ultrasonic motor, it is easy to be fabricated because of the low speed of motor. The finite element method was used to compute the vibration modes of an ultrasonic motor with a diameter of 100mm to optimize the design of the motor. A 9th mode was chosen as the operation mode with a resonance frequency about 25 kHz. According to the design, a prototype was fabricated. Its performance was measured. The rotation speed-torque curves for various frequencies were obtained. The result shows that its stall torque is greater than 4 Nm within a range of 400 Hz. This ultrasonic motor was used to drive the window glass of a mobile car and the result was satisfactory. In the further the research on the friction material between the stator and the rotor is under way to improve the efficiency of the ultrasonic motor.     

Theoretical and experimental research on a disk-type non-contact ultrasonic motor

We developed a disk-type non-contact ultrasonic motor based on B22 vibration mode. The rotors of SU-8 photoresist are fabricated by the UV-LIGA process to control their shapes and thicknesses. So the structures of them are optimized by the experiments. It is found that the revolution speed of disk-type non-contact ultrasonic motor not only depends on the vibration amplitude of the stator, but also the weight and construction of the rotors. The maximum revolution speed of the optimal rotor is 3569 rpm at the input voltage of 20 V and the driving frequency of 45.6 kHz. The exciting principle of traveling wave is presented with theoretical equations. The electric signals applied to the piezoelectric ceramic are designed by the principle. The natural frequency and corresponding vibration mode are calculated and analyzed using finite element method. It is shown that experimental results are in good agreement with simulation, which verifies the effectiveness of the finite element model. Moreover, the levitation distance between the stator and rotor is measured by a CCD laser displacement transducer.     

Finite element modelling of a rotating piezoelectric ultrasonic motor

The evaluation of the performance of ultrasonic motors as a function of input parameters such as the driving frequency, voltage input and pre-load on the rotor is of key importance to their development and is here addressed by means of a finite element three-dimensional model. First the stator is simulated as a fully deformable elastic body and the travelling wave dynamics is accurately reproduced; secondly the interaction through contact between the stator and the rotor is accounted for by assuming that the rotor behaves as a rigid surface. Numerical results for the whole motor are finally compared to available experimental data.     

Development and study of novel non-contact ultrasonic motor based on principle of structural asymmetry

The article presents novel design of non-contact rotary ultrasonic motor consisting of ring-shaped stator vibrating in in-plane flexural mode and rotor provided with blades. In contrast to other motors with similar design proposed motor relies on the use of standing ultrasonic waves. This simplifies design and electronic control of motor and becomes possible due to introduction of artificial asymmetry, for example by tilting one or several blades of the rotor relative to the surface normal. Operating principle of the proposed motor is based on acoustic radiation torque exerted on rotor by ultrasonic waves propagating in air or fluid gap between rotor and stator. This torque is calculated using finite element method by means of COMSOL Multiphysics software. Dynamics of rotor is studied using MathCad software and general theory of nonlinear conservative oscillators. Role of asymmetry is explained on the basis of comparative analysis of potential functions and phase trajectories for symmetric and asymmetric cases. It is shown that direction of rotation is determined by structural parameters of motor, particularly tilting direction (clockwise or counter-clockwise) of the blades. Conceptual design of motor with bidirectional rotation is described. Direction and velocity of rotation in the proposed conceptual design can be potentially controlled by changing excitation frequency of stator.     

Traveling wave ultrasonic motor: coupling effects in free stator

Generally a stator of traveling wave ultrasonic motor (TWUM) consists of piezoelectric transducers (annular plate or rods) coupled by the way of a metallic ring. These transducers divided into halves are excited independently by two electrical signals with different phases of about 90 degrees. So an elastic traveling wave propagates along the circumference of the ring and a rotor pressed on this vibrating surface is then driven by the stator via contact forces. Many difficulties appear in developing TWUM because the contact between the stator and the rotor via a frictional material is very important. However that may be, the first stage consists in obtaining a vibrating stator with optimum characteristics with two symmetrical phases. The aim of this paper is to discuss some coupling effects in a free stator through an enhanced equivalent circuit model. A simple experimental method based on impedance measurements is performed to estimate the coupling characteristics at a low driving voltage. This paper reports results obtained with the free stator of the well known piezoelectric ultrasonic motor "USR60" by Shinsei Co. Ltd. Since the stator behaves as an elastic body, interactions between the two electrical inputs might be described by the introduction of a coupling oscillator. The comparison of experimental and theoretical results leads to validate the new equivalent circuit of the free stator. The presence of coupling impedance could imply a change of electrical supply condition to optimize the TWUM efficiency. The effects of unbalanced features for each electrical input and the applicability of the proposed model to actual operating condition are discussed in the paper.     

Design and construction of shaft-driving type piezoceramic ultrasonic motor

A new approach in design of shaft-driving type piezoceramic ultrasonic motor is proposed. The stator of motor consisted of a commercial available buzzer disk in which a piezoceramic membrane is adhered to a metal sheet. The wave propagation on the metal sheet was generated by extended-shrunk force from piezoceramic oscillation. Driving energy came from the vibration modes by mechanical-electrical oscillation of the metal sheet in corresponding to converse piezoelectric effect using a single-phase AC voltage power. Where the relative elliptic motion was occurred between the bearing seat and rotor in order to kinematical delivery, the rotor being driven was connected directly on the bearing seat to transmit the dynamic power with frictional contact force. In analysis of dynamic features, the system transfer function of admittance and equivalent circuit was obtained. The rotating speed of the prototype motor could be reached as high as 2000 rpm on the driving condition of 72 kHz, +/-10 V(pp), and 0.2 A. The maximum torque was less than 0.003 Nm. It could be utilized in the driver of CD, or the cooling fan in the computer CPU.     

A High Revolution Speed Noncontact Ultrasonic Motor Driven by a Non-Symmetrical Electrode

A noncontact ultrasonic motor based on a non-symmetrical electrode is proposed. This motor has the advantages of using a simple driving electrode and having a high revolution speed. The revolution speed of its three-blade rotor can reach 5100rpm under a driving voltage of 20 V. A method operated easily is proposed to measure the output torque,     

压电管式弯曲旋转超声电机激励模式研究

为了提高压电管式弯曲旋转超声电机输出特性,推导出定子一、二阶弯曲振动下力系数的计算公式。结果表明,利用定子二阶弯曲振动可获得更大的定子端面输出力。提出了一种将定子分为8个激振区的交叉组合激励模式,可实现定子的二阶弯曲振动激励。基于这种新的激励模式,研制了一台压电管式弯曲旋转超声电机的样机,该样机的定子外径10 mm、内径8 mm、长35 mm。在预压力1.0 N,激励电压峰峰值210 V,工作频率41.3 kHz时,实现了定子的二阶弯曲振动,样机的堵转转矩达到2.45 N·mm,空载转速为206 r/min。与将定子分为4个激振区的同尺寸的超声电机相比,堵转转矩和空载转速分别提高了17%和23%。      

A cylindrical standing wave ultrasonic motor using bending vibration transducer

A cylindrical standing wave ultrasonic motor using bending vibration transducer was proposed in this paper. The proposed stator contains a cylinder and a bending vibration transducer. The two combining sites between the cylinder and the transducer locate at the adjacent wave loops of bending vibration of the transducer and have a distance that equal to the half wave length of bending standing wave excited in the cylinder. Thus, the bending mode of the cylinder can be excited by the bending vibration of the transducer. Two circular cone type rotors are pressed in contact to the end rims of the teeth, and the preload between the rotors and stator is accomplished by a spring and nut system. The working principle of the proposed motor was analyzed. The motion trajectories of teeth were deduced. The stator was designed and analyzed with FEM. A prototype motor was fabricated and measured. Typical output of the prototype is no-load speed of 165 rpm and maximum torque of 0.45 N m at an exciting voltage of 200 V_rms.     

Design and construction of shaft-driving type piezoceramic ultrasonic motor

A new approach in design of shaft-driving type piezoceramic ultrasonic motor is proposed. The stator of motor consisted of a commercial available buzzer disk in which a piezoceramic membrane is adhered to a metal sheet. The wave propagation on the metal sheet was generated by extended-shrunk force from piezoceramic oscillation. Driving energy came from the vibration modes by mechanical–electrical oscillation of the metal sheet in corresponding to converse piezoelectric effect using a single-phase AC voltage power. Where the relative elliptic motion was occurred between the bearing seat and rotor in order to kinematical delivery, the rotor being driven was connected directly on the bearing seat to transmit the dynamic power with frictional contact force. In analysis of dynamic features, the system transfer function of admittance and equivalent circuit was obtained. The rotating speed of the prototype motor could be reached as high as 2000 rpm on the driving condition of 72 kHz, ±10 V_pp, and 0.2 A. The maximum torque was less than 0.003 N m. It could be utilized in the driver of CD, or the cooling fan in the computer CPU.     

Experimental study of noncontact ultrasonic motor with non-symmetrical electrode

We have proposed a novel noncontact ultrasonic motor based on non-symmetrical electrode driving. The configuration of this electrode and the fabrication process of rotors are presented. Its vibration characteristics are computed and analysed by using the finite element method and studied experimentally. Good agreement between them is obtained. Moreover, it is also shown that this noncontact ultrasonic motor is operated in antisymmetric radial vibration mode of $B_{21}$ mode. The maximum revolution speed for three-blade and six-blade rotors are 5100 and 3700\,r/min at an input voltage of 20V, respectively. Also, the noncontact high-speed revolution of the rotors can be realized by the parts of I, III of the electrode or II, IV of the electrode. The levitation distance between the stator and rotor is about 140$\mu $m according to the theoretical calculation and the experimental measurement.     

Standing wave brass-PZT square tubular ultrasonic motor

This paper reports a standing wave brass-PZT tubular ultrasonic motor. The motor is composed of a brass square tube with two teeth on each tube end. Four PZT plates are attached to the outside walls of the brass tube. The motor requires only one driving signal to excite vibration in a single bending mode to generate reciprocating diagonal trajectories of teeth on the brass tube ends, which drive the motor to rotate. Bi-directional rotation is achieved by exciting different pairs of PZT plates to switch the bending vibration direction. Through using the brass-PZT tube structure, the motor can take high magnitude vibration to achieve a high output power in comparison to PZT tube based ultrasonic motors. Prototypes are fabricated and tested. The dimension of the brass-PZT tube is 3.975 mm × 3.975 mm × 16 mm. Measured performance is a no-load speed of >1000 RPM, a stall torque of 370 μNm and a maximum output power of 16 mW when a sinusoidal driving voltage of 50 V is applied. The working frequencies of the motor are 46,050 Hz (clockwise) and 46,200 Hz (counter-clockwise).     

Design sensitivity analysis of dynamic responses for a BLDC motor with mechanical and electromagnetic interactions

This paper presents a design sensitivity analysis of dynamic responses of a BLDC motor with mechanical and electromagnetic interactions. Based on the equations of motion which consider mechanical and electromagnetic interactions of the motor, the sensitivity equations for the dynamic responses were derived by applying the direct differential method. From the sensitivity equation along with the equations of motion, the time responses for the sensitivity analysis were obtained by using the Newmark time integration method. The sensitivities of the motor performances such as the electromagnetic torque, rotating speed, and vibration level were analyzed for the six design parameters of rotor mass, shaft/bearing stiffness, rotor eccentricity, winding resistance, coil turn number, and residual magnetic flux density. Furthermore, to achieve a higher torque, higher speed, and lower vibration level, a new BLDC motor was designed by applying the multi-objective function method. It was found that all three performances are sensitive to the design parameters in the order of the coil turn number, magnetic flux density, rotor mass, winding resistance, rotor eccentricity, and stiffness. It was also found that the torque and vibration level are more sensitive to the parameters than the rotating speed. Finally, by applying the sensitivity analysis results, a new optimized design of the motor resulted in better performances. The newly designed motor showed an improved torque, rotating speed, and vibration level.     

A vibrators alternation stepping ultrasonic motor

A new concept of a vibrators alternation stepping ultrasonic motor, based on longitudinal vibrations of rectangular Langevin resonators, is presented. The new motor fed by a single-phase resource without feedback is capable of bi-directions step displacements without accumulative displacement error. The step angle is 1.44 degrees, when the 150 grooves on the rotor are used in positioning. The average rotation speed without load in one step is 16.49-14.65 rad/s, and the braking torque is 0.071-0.088 Nm in operating frequency 30 kHz and operation voltage 200 V.     

Characteristics of ring type traveling wave ultrasonic motor in vacuum

The characteristics of ultrasonic motor strongly depend on the properties of stator/rotor contact interface which are affected by ambient environment. With the developed apparatus, load properties of two ring type traveling wave ultrasonic motors in atmosphere, low vacuum and high vacuum were studied, respectively. Wear of friction material, variations of vacuum degree and the temperature of motor during the experiment were also measured. The results show that load properties of motor A in vacuum were poorer than those in atmosphere, when load torque M_f was less than 0.55 N m. Compared to motor A, load properties of motor B were affected a little by environmental pressure. Wear of friction material in vacuum was more severe than wear in atmosphere. The temperature of motor in vacuum rose more quickly than it in atmosphere and had not reached equilibrium in 2 h experiment. However, the temperature of motor in atmosphere had reached equilibrium in about forth minutes. Furthermore, outgas was also observed during experiment under vacuum conditions.     

Ultrasonic micro-motor using miniature piezoelectric tube with diameter of 1.0 mm

At the present moment, the smallest piezoelectric ultrasonic micro-motors utilizing miniature PZT piezoelectric ceramic tubes were developed. The motor consists of a PZT-metal composite tube stator, two steel rotors and a thin shaft that keeps the two rotors pressing on both ends of the stator elastically. The dimensions of the PZT tube are 1.0 mm in outer diameter, 0.6 mm in inner diameter and 5.0 mm in length. The diameter and total length of the assembled micro-motor is 1.0 mm and 8 mm (including an adjusting spring), respectively. The tube-type micro-motor is driven by two pairs of alternative voltages with phase shift 90 degrees between the adjacent electrodes and operated in the first circular-bending vibration mode of the stator with the resonance frequency about 58 kHz. The experimental results show that the tube-type micro-motors have perfect performances: (i) high rotation frequency over 3000 rpm and (ii) large starting torque over 7.8 microN m under the conditions of the input voltage of 110 V(p-p) and the resonance frequency. The micro-motor is well suitable for operating in micro-spaces, such as in intravascular, micro-robots and micro-craft applications.     

Mode-splitting and quasi-degeneracies in circular plate vibration problems: The example of free vibrations of the stator of a traveling wave ultrasonic motor

In systems with rotational symmetry, bending modes occur in doubly-degenerate pairs with two independent vibration modes for each repeated natural frequency. In circular plates, the standing waves of two such degenerate bending modes can be superposed with a 1/4 period separation in time to yield a traveling wave response. This is the principle of a traveling wave ultrasonic motor (TWUM), in which a traveling bending wave in a stator drives the rotor through a friction contact. The stator contains teeth to increase the speed at the contact region, and these affect the rotational symmetry of the plate. When systems with rotational symmetry are modified either in their geometry, or by spatially varying their properties or boundary conditions, some mode-pairs split into singlet modes having distinct frequencies. In addition, coupling between some pairs of distinct unperturbed modes also causes quasi-degeneracies in the perturbed modes, which leads their frequency curves to approach and veer away in some regions of the parameter space. This paper discusses the effects of tooth geometry on the behavior of plate modes under free vibration. It investigates mode splitting and quasi-degeneracies and derives analytic expressions to predict these phenomena, using variational methods and a degenerate perturbation scheme for the solution to the plate’s discrete eigenvalue problem; these expressions are confirmed by solving the discrete eigenvalue problem of the plate with teeth.