Due to the safety threats caused by icing, the de-icing system is essential in the aviation industry. As an effective method, the electromechanical de-icing system (EDS) is a new ice-protection system based on mechanical vibration principles. For the majority of the current research on system de-icing capability estimation, the effect of impedance-matching is not considered. Impedance matching plays a very important role in improving the performance of the electromechanical system, so we must also consider the impact of impedance matching when designing the EDS. In the present study, a de-icing capability prediction method considering the impact of an impedance-matching device is established based on experimental and numerical methods. The results indicate that the impedance-matching effect has no impact on the mechanical vibration of the structure for the same load power. Meanwhile, impedance-matching devices can significantly improve the power factor and increase the interface shear stress/strain for de-icing. Eight different vibrational modes were tested, and the experimental results showed that the actual interface shear strain after impedance matching is inversely proportional to the de-icing time. The verification experiments were conducted and the accuracy of the proposed prediction method was verified.

In this paper, a novel continuous fiber reinforced piezoelectric composite (CFRPC) actuator is proposed to improve the stability and reliability of piezoelectric actuators. A piezoelectric driving structure composed of a cantilever beam and the CFRPC actuator is utilized to research the actuation performance of the CFRPC actuator. The expression of the equivalent moment for the CFRPC actuator is obtained using the equivalent load method and electro-mechanical coupling theory. Based on Euler-Bernoulli beam theory, the analytical expression of the deflection for the cantilever beam is derived. The accuracy of the obtained analytical expressions is demonstrated by finite element simulation as well as published experimental results. The actuation performance of the CFRPC actuator is investigated through the analytical expressions of the equivalent moment and deflection. The results show that the key parameters such as driving voltage, fiber volume fraction, cantilever beam height, actuator height, actuator length and actuator position have great influence on the actuation performance of the CFRPC actuator. The CFRPC actuator has good mechanical and electrical properties, and has a wide application prospect in the field of structural shape control.

The deformable mirror with the size of $410~\text{mm}\times 468~\text{mm}$ controlled by the bimorph piezoceramic plates and multilayer piezoceramic stacks was developed. The results of the measurements of the response functions of all the actuators and of the surface shape of the deformable mirror are presented in this paper. The study of the mirror with a Fizeau interferometer and a Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor has shown that it was possible to improve the flatness of the surface down to a residual roughness of $0.033~{\rm\mu}\text{m}$ (RMS). The possibility of correction of the aberrations in high-power lasers was numerically demonstrated.

A novel nano-scale manipulator capable of handling low-dimensional materials with three-dimensional linear motion, gripping action, and push–pull action of the gripper was developed for an in situ experiment in transmission electron microscopy. X-Y-Z positioning and push–pull action were accomplished by a piezotubing system, combined with a specially designed assembly stage that consisted of a lever-action gripping tip backed by a push–pull piezostack. The gripper tip consisted of tungsten wire fabricated by electrochemical etching followed by a focused ion beam process. Performance of the nano-scale manipulator was demonstrated in a grab-and-pick test of a single silver nanowire and in an in situ tensile test of a pearlitic steel sample with a specific orientation.

At present, millimeter wave fast tunable components are required for telecommunication systems, car collision prevention radar, etc. The only mechanical way of control inserts practically no loss in the frequency agile system. That is why micro-electromechanical systems devices are being studied intensively. In an overview, an alternative way – piezo-electromechanical tuning of microwave components – is reported.

This paper presents the theoretical formulation of a lithographical bending control (LBC) method that uses lithographical degrees of freedom to control the bending of a multilayered beam. LBC is applied to a piezoelectric actuator that uses PZT as the piezoelectric material. The theoretical model is compared with measurements using a weakly fixed bridge structure suited for curvature measurement.

This paper is to present the design and development of a piezoelectric actuator for SPM in ultrahigh vacuum (10−7∼10−9 Torr). The measuring probe is installed on a precise scanning actuator, which is further driven by a fast approaching actuator. The precise scanning actuator composed of a piezo-tube with segmented electrodes can realize 3-D precise scanning motions at subnanometer level to move the measuring probe over the measured surface. Because of its stable and smooth actuating behavior, the inchworm actuating principle is selected for the fast approaching actuator, which is build up with two controllable clamping devices and an actuating device. Diverse flexure mechanisms are applied in the actuator to attain frictionless guiding and recovery functions. To realize balanced clamping forces on the scanning tube, each clamping device is integrated with a fine regulating mechanism for clamping force. By applying the theoretical model and the finite element analysis, the relations between force and deflection inside the actuator were investigated to validate its function. The developed actuator has sustained the severe baking and pumping process, and their function and performance were verified experimentally in ultrahigh vacuum.

To obtain specifications for a tactile display that would be effective in virtual reality and tele-existence systems, we have developed two types of matrix-type experimental tactile displays. One is for virtual figures (display A) and the other is for virtual textures (display B). Display A's pad has a 4 × 6 array of stimulus pins, each 0.8 mm in diameter. Three pad configurations, in which distances between any two adjacent pins (pin pitch) are 1.2, 1.9, or 2.5 mm, were developed to examine the influence of distance on a human operator's determination of virtual figures. Display B has an 8 × 8 array of stimulus pins, each 0.3 mm in diameter and with 1-or 1.8-mm pin pitch, because presentation of virtual textures was presumed to require a higher pin density. To establish a design method for these matrix-type tactile displays, we performed a series of psychophysical experiments using displays A and B. By evaluating variations in the correct answer percentage and threshold caused by different pin arrays and different pin strokes, we determined under what conditions the operator could best feel the virtual figures and textures. The results revealed that the two-point threshold should be adopted as the pitch between pins in the design of the tactile display, that a pin stroke should exceed 0.25 mm, and that the adjustment method is the most appropriate to evaluate the capabilities of tactile displays. Finally, when we compared the virtual texture with the real texture, we found that the threshold for the real texture is almost 1/3rd that of the virtual texture. This result implies that it is effective to present variations in patterns caused by rotation and variation in shearing force, itself produced by relative motion between the finger surface and object surface.

We consider a controllability problem for a beam, clamped at one boundary andfree at the other boundary, with an attached piezoelectric actuator. ByHilbert Uniqueness Method (HUM)and new results on diophantine approximations, weprove that the space of exactly initial controllable data depends on thelocation of the actuator. We also illustrate these results with numericalsimulations.

Active control of noise radiation from vibrating plate excited by a harmonic line moment is analytically investigated. This study model of simple supported rectangular plate with a line moment excitation is used to simulate the vibration of ship hull or fuselage from the flutter of ship deck or aircraft wing respectively. The control is achieved by various configurations of piezoelectric actuators. The strategy of radiated power minimization is used to obtain the optimal control input unit voltage. The numerical results show that the significant attenuation of noise radiated power for volumetric modes in the low frequency range can be achieved with one control actuator located at the center of plate, irrespective of whether the excitation is on or off resonance. The efficiency of the active control is dependent on the location of the line moment and the actuators. It is also shown that the modal suppression and modal restructuring are two physical mechanisms of radiated power attenuation.