• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.286-289
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• 2004

This paper presents the fatigue characteristics of LIPCA (LIghtweight Piezo-Composite Actuator) device system. The LIPCA device system is composed of a piezoelectric ceramic layer and fiber reinforced lightweight composite layers. Typically a PZT ceramic layer is sandwiched by a top fiber layer with low CTE (coefficient of thermal expansion) and base layers with high CTE. The advantages of the LIPCA design are weight reduction by using the lightweight fiber reinforced plastic layers without compromising the generation of high force and large displacement and design flexibility by selecting the fiber direction and the size of prepreg layers. To predict the degradation of actuation performance of LIPCA due to fatigue, the cyclic electric loading tests using PZT specimens were performed and the strain for a given excitation voltage was measured during the test. The results from the PZT fatigue test were implemented into CLPT (Classical Laminated Plate Theory) model to predict the degradation of LIPCA's actuation displacement. The fatigue characteristic of PZT was measured using a test system composed of a supporting jig, a high voltage power supplier, data acquisition board, PC, and evaluated.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.180-187
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• 2005

This paper is focused on the development of the flexible electrode for disc-type polymer actuators using Segmented Polyurethane(SPU). This paper consists of two parts. The one is about the mechanical property such as elastic modulus. these parameters mainly affect behaviors of polymer actuators and the other is about the electro-chemical property such as the surface resistance of the composite electrode affects the strength of electrostatic force, results in the deformation of polymer actuators. The Young's modulus was measured by UTM. As result, by increasing the modulus of a body of polymer actuators, the maximum displacement of polymer actuators are decreased. The surface resistance of the electrode was measured by 4 point probe system. Compared with the conductive silver grease, the displacement of polymer actuators using carbon black(CB) composite electrodes is comparably small but CB composite electrode should be the practical approach for the improvement of the performance of all-solid actuators, compared with another types of electrode materials.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.218-224
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• 2007

Although piezoelectric materials such as PZT have been widely used as actuators in the field of active vibration suppression, the use of bare PZT as an actuator may cause some drawbacks such as critical breaks in the installation process, short circuits in the host material and low fatigue performance. The LIPCA-C2 (lightweight piezocomposite actuator) was developed to alleviate these problems. We implemented the LIPCA as an actuator to suppress the vibration of an aluminum cantilever beam with a tip mass. In our test, we used positive position feedback control algorithm. The filter frequency for this type of feedback should be tuned to the natural frequency of the target mode. The first three experimental natural frequencies of the aluminum cantilever beam agree well with the results of finite element analysis. The effectiveness of using the LIPCA as an actuator in active vibration suppression was investigated with respect to the time and frequency domains, and the experimental results show that LIPCAs with PPF control can significantly reduce the amplitude of forced vibrations and the settling time of free vibrations. For a case study, the forced vibration control of several beams with different thicknesses were performed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 1997.04a
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• pp.687-694
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• 1997

The anisotropy and shape of distributed piezopolymer actuator have advantages over isotropic piezo ceramic materials, since these features of PVDF can be utilized as another design variable in control application. This study is interested in the reduction of sound transmission through elastic plate into interior space by using the PVDF actuator. The plate-cavity system is adopted as a test problem. The vibration of composite plate and the sound fields through plate are analyzed by using the coupled finite element and boundary element method. Some numerical simulations are performed on sound transmission through elastic plates. To investigate the effects of anisotropy and shape of distributed piezopolymer actuator, various kinds of distributed PVDF actuators are applied in sound control simulation for isotropic and anisotropic plates. The PVDF actuators applied are different from each other in their shapes and laminate angles. The results of control simulation show that the control effectiveness of distributed PYDF actuator can be enhanced by using the coupling between shape of actuator and vibration modes of structure and the anisotropy of piezoelectric properties of PVDF.

• Composites Research
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.37-42
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• 2009

This paper presents an experimental approach to design a bending-type actuator by using a shape memory alloy wire (SMA), composite strip, and spring. The SMA wire is attached to two edges of the bent strip to apply pre-stress to the SMA wire. The spring is used to provide recovery force right after actuation of the SMA wire. To investigate thermo-mechanical characteristics of the SMA wire, a series of DSC tests have been conducted and tensile tests under various levels of pre-stress and input power have been performed. Based on the measured properties of the SMA wire, bending-type actuators are designed and tested for different combination of strip, number of springs, and input power. It has been found that a bending-type actuator with a proper combination shows fast actuation performance and low power consumption.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.739-740
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• 2010

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.390-396
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• 2007

In the present study, we have developed a flapping wing using a smart material to mimic the nature's flyers, birds. The wing consists of composite frames, a flexible PVC film and a surface actuator, and the main wing motions are flapping, twisting and camber motions. To change the camber, a Macro-Fiber Composite(MFC) is used as the surface actuator, and it's structural response is analyzed by the use of piezoelectric-thermal analogy. To measure the lift and thrust simultaneously, a test stand consisting of two load cells is manufactured. Some aerodynamic tests are performed for the wing in a subsonic wind tunnel to evaluate the dynamic characteristics. Experimental results show that the main lift is mostly affected by the forward velocity and the pitch angle, but the thrust is mostly affected by the flapping frequency. The effect of the camber generated by the MFC actuator can produce the sufficient lift increment of up to 24.4% in static condition and 20.8% in dynamic condition.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.131-136
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• 2011

Many researchers are recently studying about Electroactive polymer(EAP). But it has a physical limitation, because of property of material. Carbon nanotube(CNT) is known as the promising material which has excellent electro-mechanical characteristics and is mostly defect-free. It is expected that a successful synthesis of CNT and Nafion known as a primary material for IPMC would make a great improvement on its electro-mechanic feature. This study focuses on the method of synthesis of CNT with Nafion which improves electro-mechanical characteristic. To come up with mechanical dispersion with Nafion and Isopropyl Alcohol(IPA), we dispersed Single-walled carbon nanotubes(SWCNTs). For a uniformly layer of CNT, we used a spray gun on a hot plate by a simplified method. We fabricated a disperse SWCNT/Nafion composite uniformly. Through the use of the E-beam evaporator to form an uniform electrode layer, we consummated the IPMC actuator. This result shows improving 1.5 times mechanical properties about driving force in IPMC.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.51-54
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• 2005

Shape memory alloys (SMAs) find many applications in smart composite structural systems as the active components. Their ability to provide a high force and large displacement makes them an excellent candidate for an actuator for controlling the shape of smart structures. In this paper, using a macroscopic model that captures the thermo-mechanical behaviors and the two-way shape memory effect (TWSME) of SMAs smart morphing polymeric composite shell structures like shape-changeable UAV wings is demonstrated and analyzed numerically and experimentally when subjected to various kinds of pressure loads. The controllable shapes of the morphing shells to that thin SMA strip actuator are attached are investigated depending on various phase transformation temperatures. SMA strips start to transform from the martensitic into the austenitic state upon actuation through resistive heating, simultaneously recover the prestrain, and thus cause the shell structures to deform three dimensionally. The behaviors of composite shells attached with SMA strip actuators are analyzed using the finite element methods and 3-D constitutive equations of SMAs. Several morphing composite shell structures are fabricated and their experimental shape changes depending on temperatures are compared to the numerical results. That two results show good correlations indicates the finite element analysis and 3-D constitutive equations are accurate enough to utilize them for the design of smart composite shell structures for various applications.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.1558-1562
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• 2008

Ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC), one of Electro- Active Polymer (EAP) actuators, has great attention due to the low-voltage driven, large deformation and its potential for artificial muscles. In this paper, we firstly review fish swimming modes using various propulsion mechanisms. Based on study on the swimming mechanisms, we develop an underwater robot actuator which mimics fanning motion of webfoot form. It consists of four actuators fabricated by using IPMC and PDMS which mimics Bio-inspired motion Experiments using a prototype show that the webfooted IPMC actuator generates large deformation and propulsion.