Papers by Author: Meng Kao Yeh

Abstract: Silicon chip has been widely used in solar cell recently. The thinning of silicon chip, easily inducing surface defects, becomes necessary to produce solar cells more efficiently. The surface defects resulting in stress concentration on the silicon chip surface would be the source of chip failure. In this study, the finite element analysis was used to investigate the stress distribution near the surface crack of a solar cell on which the nanostructures were introduced to alleviate the induced stress. For the solar cell model, positive silver and negative aluminum electrodes were added on the top and bottom sides of silicon chip. The solar cell under four-point bending was simulated in analysis with and without nanostructures. The results show that the stresses reduce more than 50 % for the solar cell model with nanostructures. When the crack depth is deeper enough, the stress at crack tip is higher than that at junction near the electrode and the crack leads to the failure of solar cell. The effect of different section length of nanostructures on the stress distribution caused by the surface crack was also discussed.

Abstract: This paper investigates the effect of physical parameters of a rounded crack on the stress concentration near crack tip. The depth and radius at the crack tip are the two physical parameters concerned in this study. The finite element method was used to evaluate the stress value at the crack tip for a silicon chip with a tiny crack under tensile stress. Element type, shape and physical parameters of crack were varied to study their effect on the stress concentration near the crack. The simulation results were compared with the theoretical value, and the better physical parameters as well as the element type, element shape were discussed.

Abstract: Sandwich structure, with high specific strength, high specific stiffness facesheet and light-weighted core material bonded together, is one of commonly used composite structures. During the manufacturing process, it is possible to have debonding between facesheet and core. This facesheet/core debonding affects the mechanical property and strength of sandwich structure. In this study, sandwich beams are made of graphite/epoxy laminate as facesheet and MWNTs/epoxy nanocomposites as core material. The composite sandwich beam, with a central facesheet/core debond and under four point bending, was analyzed by the finite element method. The length of the debonding layer, the fiber orientation of the facesheet laminate and MWNTs content in core were varied to assess their effects on the bending behavior and the strengths of the centrally-debonded sandwich beams.

Abstract: The thermal stress and thermal fatigue life for three different microgyroscope chip models were investigated in this paper. The deformation and stress distribution in chip, at interface between microgyroscope and chip, and in the spring of microgyroscope were obtained for three different microgyroscope chip models by the finite element method. The results show that for the simplified model, no obvious differences from linear or nonlinear analyses are obtained and the fatigue life of microgyroscope chip can be predicted with the properly simplified model. Also, the model having the same process in fabricating microgyroscope and carrier has better reliability. This paper provides an effective method for the reliability analysis of microgyroscope chip.

Abstract: The thermal expansion mismatch problem for a chip due to temperature decrease from processing temperature to room temperature may cause residual stress inside the chip structure. The thermal prestress accumulated and may affect the chip reliability when the chip was subjected to the thermal loading again. In this paper, the effect of thermal prestress on the micromirror chip embedded with copper through-silicon vias (TSVs) was investigated by the finite element method. In analysis, the micromirror chip embedded with TSVs was analyzed first under thermal loading which resulted from temperature decrease between the stress free processing temperature and room temperature. This process produced a thermal prestress in the micromirror chip. The chip was then subjected to a heat source at the bottom while in operation and the heat transfer analysis was used to simulate this situation. Finally, the thermal stress analysis was carried out to obtain the deformation and the stress distribution in the chip. The results show that the thermal prestress had strong effect on the chip reliability and should be reduced as much as possible. This paper proposed a three steps analysis method to obtain the deformation and the stress distribution in the chip, in which the effect of thermal prestress on the chip reliability was evaluated effectively.

Abstract: The interfacial property between graphite/epoxy laminate and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs)/polymer nanocomposites was investigated. For the graphite/epoxy laminate, the fiber orientations were varied. For the MWNTs/polymer nanocomposites, the epoxy resins were used as the matrix material and the MWNTs were used as the reinforcement. The weight percentage of MWNTs in the MWNTs/polymer nanocomposites beam specimen was varied. The graphite/epoxy laminate and the MWNTs/polymer nanocomposite beam were glued together by epoxy to make the test specimens. To determine the interfacial property, the end notch flexure (ENF) method was used, and the specimen was placed in a three-point bending test to evaluate the critical strain energy release rate Gc. In analysis, the finite element method was used to obtain the numerical values of the critical strain energy release rate Gc and compared with the experimental ones.

Abstract: Composite materials, having advantages of high specific strength, high specific stiffness, are used in many applications, such as musical instrument, acoustical tile, fire wall, sports equipment, aerospace and vehicle industries. Composite products in the form of sandwich structures are specifically useful in recent years. In this paper, the bending strength of sandwich structure made by graphite/epoxy face laminates and core material made by multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) reinforced polymer was investigated experimentally. In experiment, the three-point bending test was performed to measure the bending properties of sandwich beams. The influences of fiber orientation in the face laminates and MWNTs content in polymer reinforced nanocomposite core material on the bending strength of sandwich beams were discussed in this paper. The failure mechanism of sandwich beams with various fiber orientations in the face laminates was also discussed.

Abstract: In this paper, carbon nanotubes were used as the reinforcements in the polymer composites for the application of electromagnetic interference, due to their outstanding mechanical and electrical properties. The multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) synthesized by the chemical vapor deposition method were used to reinforce the epoxy resin by both mixing and spreading processes. The effects of the weight percentage and the reinforced form of MWNTs on electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness, including the absorbance and the reflectance, were investigated. From experimental results, the electromagnetic shielding effectiveness of the nanocomposite specimens is improved with increasing content of MWNTs. The nanocomposites fabricated by the spreading process have better shielding effectiveness than those made by the mixing process. The nanocomposites, made by the spreading process with 2 wt% MWNTs, had up to 22.69 dB of electromagnetic shielding effectiveness. The reflectance percentage of electromagnetic shielding increases for higher content of MWNTs. The layerwise form of MWNTs in the nanocomposites, resulting from the spreading process and having a better electromagnetic shielding effectiveness, can be observed from the morphologies of the tensile failure surfaces of the nanocomposite specimens by filed emission scanning electron microscopy.

Abstract: The synchrotron radiation is an important light source used to improve the measurement resolution and efficiency of scientific equipments. The electrons in radio frequency system are accelerated by the synchrotron radiation superconducting cavity. Tensile or compressive loads along the axial direction may be applied on this thin-walled shell cavity for compensating the frequency shift due to the variations of surrounding condition. In order to avoid the failure of the thin-walled shell cavity before the frequency tuning process, the finite element method and experiment were used to predict the deformation behavior and limit load of thin-walled shell cavity. The parameters such as thickness, material properties and radius of round beam tube were discussed. The finite element results show that the limit loads were overestimated when the material properties were assumed to be linear elastic. When the cavity becomes thicker, the limit loads and the maximum compressive displacements of thin-walled shell cavity increase. The analysis method used in this paper can help us find the tunable ranges of synchrotron radiation superconducting cavities with different thicknesses, material properties and geometries.

Abstract: The bending property and failure mechanism of sandwich beams were investigated. The multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) were used as the reinforcement in the MWNTs/polymer nanocomposites and the epoxy and phenolic resins were used as the matrix. The MWNTs/polymer nanocomposites were used as the core materials of sandwich beams, which had faces made by graphite/epoxy laminates. In experiment, the hot press method was applied to fabricate the MWNTs/polymer nanocomposites and graphite/epoxy laminates. The weight percentage of MWNTs in core materials and the fiber orientation of face laminates were varied to assess their effects on the bending properties of the sandwich beams. The failure mechanism of sandwich beams with two kinds of polymer core materials was investigated. In analysis, the finite element method was used to obtain the bending behavior of the sandwich beams. The numerical results were in good agreement with the experimental ones.