Piezoelectric Sensors Operating at Very High Temperatures and in Extreme Environments Made of Flexible Ultrawide-Bandgap Single-Crystalline AlN Thin Films

Extreme environments are often faced in energy, transportation, aerospace, and defense applications and pose a technical challenge in sensing. Piezoelectric sensor based on single-crystalline AlN transducers is developed to address this challenge. The pressure sensor shows high sensitivities of 0.4–0.5 mV per psi up to 900 °C and output voltages from 73.3 to 143.2 mV for input gas pressure range of 50 to 200 psi at 800 °C. The sensitivity and output voltage also exhibit the dependence on temperature due to two origins. A decrease in elastic modulus (Young's modulus) of the diaphragm slightly enhances the sensitivity and the generation of free carriers degrades the voltage output beyond 800 °C, which also matches with theoretical estimation. The performance characteristics of the sensor are also compared with polycrystalline AlN and single-crystalline GaN thin films to investigate the importance of single crystallinity on the piezoelectric effect and bandgap energy-related free carrier generation in piezoelectric devices for high-temperature operation. The operation of the sensor at 900 °C is amongst the highest for pressure sensors and the inherent properties of AlN including chemical and thermal stability and radiation resistance indicate this approach offers a new solution for sensing in extreme environments.     

A comparison of different geometrical elements to model fluid wicking in paper-based microfluidic devices

Recently, microfluidic paper-based analytical devices (μPADs) have outstripped polymeric microfluidic devices in the ease of fabrication and simplicity. Surface tension-based fluid motion in the paper's porous structure has made the paper a suitable substrate for multiple biological assays by directing fluid into multiple assay zones. The widespread assumption in most works for modeling wicking in a paper is that the paper is a combination of capillaries with the same diameter equal to the effective pore diameter. Although assuming paper as a bundle of capillaries gives a good insight into pressure force that drives the fluid inside the paper, there are some difficulties using the effective pore radius. The effective pore radius is totally different from the average geometrical pore radius which makes it impossible to predict wicking in μPADs based on geometrical parameters. In this article, we introduce different analytical and numerical models to investigate the possibility of determining the permeability of the paper, based on geometrical parameters rather than effective parameters. The lattice Boltzmann method is used for numerical simulations. The permeability of each of the proposed models was compared with the experimental permeability. Results indicated that assuming paper as a combination of capillaries and annuluses leads to accurate results that totally depend on average geometrical values rather than effective values. This paves the way for prediction of the fluid wicking only by considering average geometrical pore and fiber diameters.     

Stability and stabilization of linear sampled-data systems with multi-rate samplers and time driven zero order holds

In multi-rate sampled-data systems, a continuous-time plant is controlled by a discrete-time controller which is located in the feedback loop between sensors with different sampling rates and actuators with different refresh rates. The main contribution of this paper is to propose sufficient Krasovskii-based stability and stabilization criteria for linear sampled-data systems, with multi-rate samplers and time driven zero order holds. For stability analysis, it is assumed that an exponentially stabilizing controller is already designed in continuous-time and is implemented as a discrete-time controller. For each sensor (or actuator), the problem of finding an upper bound on the lowest sampling frequency (or refresh rate) that guarantees exponential stability is cast as an optimization problem in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Furthermore, sufficient conditions for controller synthesis are formulated as LMIs. It is shown through examples that choosing the right sensors (or actuators) with adequate sampling frequencies (or refresh rates) has a considerable impact on stability of the closed-loop system.     

Multidisciplinary design of a guided flying vehicle using simplex nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II

This paper presents design of a typical Guided Flying Vehicle (GFV) using the multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO). The main objectives of this multi-disciplinary design are maximizing the payload’s weight as well as minimizing the miss distance. The main disciplines considered for this design include aerodynamics, dynamic, guidance, control, structure, weight and balance. This design of GFV is applied to three and six Degree of Freedom (DOF) to show comparison of simulation results. The hybrid scheme of optimization algorithm is based on Nelder-Mead Simplex optimization algorithm and Nondominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA II), called Simplex-NSGA II. This scheme is implemented for finding an optimal solution through the MDO. The Simplex-NSGA II method is a heuristic optimization algorithm that applies to multi-objective functions and the results are then compared with the most famous algorithms, like Nondominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA II) and Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO). Simulation results demonstrate the superior performance of the Simplex-NSGA II over NSGA II and MOPSO. Also, it is used in this study in order to achieve an optimal solution using MDO in both 3DOF and 6DOF simulations of GFV to reach desirable performance index.     

Numerical modeling of two-phase supersonic ejectors for work-recovery applications

An ejector is a fluid pumping device that uses the energy of a high pressure motive fluid to raise the pressure of a secondary lower-pressure fluid. Motive pressure is converted into momentum through a choked nozzle creating a high velocity jet which entrains the surrounding low-momentum suction flow. The two streams mix and finally pressure is recovered through a diffuser. There has been little progress on high fidelity modeling of the expanding supersonic two-phase flow in refrigerant expansion work recovery ejectors due to rather complex physics involving nonequilibrium thermodynamics, shear mixing, and void fraction-dependent speed of sound. However, this technology can be applied to significantly increase the efficiency of space cooling and refrigeration devices. The approach developed in this study integrates models for real-fluid properties, local mass and energy transfer between the phases, and two-phase sonic velocity in the presence of phase change into a commercial CFD code. The intent is to create a practical design tool with better fidelity than HEM CFD models yet with tractability lacking in current boundary tracking phase change CFD models. The developed model has been validated through comparison of key performance metrics against test data under certain operating conditions.     

Synthesis of polypyrrole/indium tin oxide nanocomposites via miniemulsion polymerization

Polypyrrole/indium tin oxide nanocomposites were synthesized via in situ miniemulsion polymerization of pyrrole monomer in the presence of indium tin oxide nanoparticles. Different nanocomposites were synthesized by different loadings of nano indium tin oxide. The morphology and nanoparticles distribution of the nanocomposites were characterized by electron microscopy. The results of XRD and TEM analysis showed that indium tin oxide nanoparticles were well placed in the polymeric structure of latex. FTIR analysis was used for the characterization of synthesized polypyrrole and its nanocomposites. TGA analysis was performed to investigate the thermal behavior of pristine polypyrrole and its nanocomposites. Conductivities of nanocomposites were measured by 4-point probe method and compared to the neat polymer.     

Sensor allocation with guaranteed exponential stability for linear multi‐rate sampled‐data systems

This paper addresses sensor allocation with guaranteed exponential stability for linear multi‐rate sampled‐data systems. It is assumed that a continuous‐time linear plant is exponentially stabilized by a continuous‐time linear controller. Given sensors with incommensurate sampling rates, the objective is to allocate each state to a sensor such that the resulting multi‐rate sampled‐data system remains exponentially stable. The main contributions of this paper are twofold. First, we propose sufficient Krasovskii‐based conditions to partition the state vector among sensors such that exponential stability of the closed‐loop system is guaranteed. Second, the problem of finding a partition that guarantees exponential stability is cast as a mixed integer program subject to linear matrix inequalities. The theoretical results are successfully applied to two robotic problems: path‐following in unicycles and hovering in quadrotors. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On exponential stability of linear networked control systems

This paper addresses exponential stability of linear networked control systems. More specifically, the paper considers a continuous‐time linear plant in feedback with a linear sampled‐data controller with an unknown time varying sampling rate, the possibility of data packet dropout, and an uncertain time varying delay. The main contribution of this paper is the derivation of new sufficient stability conditions for linear networked control systems taking into account all of these factors. The stability conditions are based on a modified Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional. The stability results are also applied to the case where limited information on the delay bounds is available. The case of linear sampled‐data systems is studied as a corollary of the networked control case. Furthermore, the paper also formulates the problem of finding a lower bound on the maximum network‐induced delay that preserves exponential stability as a convex optimization program in terms of linear matrix inequalities. This problem can be solved efficiently from both practical and theoretical points of view. Finally, as a comparison, we show that the stability conditions proposed in this paper compare favorably with the ones available in the open literature for different benchmark problems. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.