An amphibious vibration-driven microrobot with a piezoelectric actuator

This article concerns microrobots for solid and liquid environments. A short overview of microrobotics, suitable actuators and energy systems is given. The principles of terrestrial and aquatic locomotion are discussed and illustrated with examples from the literature on robotics. The state of the art with a focus on piezo microrobots for solid and liquid environments is presented. Furthermore, we report an amphibious prototype, which can move on flat solid ground and on the free surface of water. The design, characteristic parameters and experiments on locomotion are described. The robot is characterized by a light and simple design and can perform twodimensional locomotion in different environments with a speed up to 30 mm/s. An analytical model to predict the maximum carrying capacity of the robot on water is solved numerically.     

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.     

Suppression of Electromagnetically Induced Free-Surface Instabilities in Liquid Metals

The work presented is devoted to studies of foundations of the suppression techniques for electromagnetically induced instabilities of the free liquid metal surfaces. Such instabilities occur, for instance, in a number of technologies for requested refinement of materials like electron beam evaporation or levitation melting, in which the electromagnetic shaping technique is applied. The instability phenomenon in our case has following magnetohydrodynamic background. High-frequency magnetic field causes Lorentz force density generation within so-called skin-layer in the liquid metal, which works as a surface pressure in turn. With increase of the electromagnetic pressure a destabilizing mechanism progresses within the liquid metal domain, which causes a bifurcation. In this paper we discuss application alternating magnetic fields to increase the bifurcation threshold by passive and active redistribution of the Lorentz force density in the near-surface layers of the liquid metal domain. A novel stabilization system on the basis of a local electromagnetic influence on the liquid metal surface in the high frequency magnetic field is presented. The experimental results are discussed. (© 2011 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Effect of ultrasound on activation of serine proteases precursors

The effect of ultrasound (US) (26.4 kHz, 26 W/cm2) on the activation process of a mixture of chymotrypsinogen and trypsinogen was studied. US led to a significant decrease in proteolytic activity, as well as inhibition of the activation process in general. It was shown that inhibition of proteinase activity under US influence was a consequence of inhibition of chymotrypsinogen-chymotrypsin transformation and the complete proteolytic trypsin degradation in the proenzymes mixture.