Papers by Keyword: Piezoelectric Polymer

Abstract: This paper is devoted to procedures for the reliability-based optimization methods of engineering structures combining measurement and sensitivity technique, for the purpose of the better sensitivity in force-gradient detection. In the experiment part of this study, the mica muscovite cantilever beam clamped-free is used. The excitation of a cantilever beam with several small sheets of piezoelectric polymer adequately glued to it selects one high-frequency vibration mode of the cantilever. The proposed strategy is design into a framework that allows the solution of optimization problems involving a several number of design parameters that characterizes the systems, including dimensional tolerance, material properties, boundary conditions, loads, and model predictions, considered to be uncertainties or variables. The proposed methodology directly supports quality engineering aspects enabling to specify the manufacturing tolerances normally required to achieve desired product reliability. Within this context, the robust design obtained is optimal over the range of variable conditions because it considers uncertainties during the optimization process. The large number of exact evaluations of problem, combined with the typically high dimensions of FE models of industrial structures, makes reliability-based optimization procedures very costly, sometimes unfeasible. Those difficulties motivate the study reported in this paper, in which a strategy is proposed consisting in the use of reliability-based optimization strategy combined with measurement and sensitivity technique specially adapted to the structures of industrial interested.

Abstract: The bioactivity of poled piezoelectric PLLA membrane was investigated by studying the calcium phosphate formation in vitro using a biomimetic method. Samples (φ10mm) were poled under DC electric field of 8~l0kV/cm at 70°C for 30 min followed by cooling under the electric field. Surface chemistry of the samples before and after poling treatment was studied by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Poled/unpoled samples were immersed in supersaturated calcification solution (SCS) for periods up to 24 h (36.5°C). The surface morphology and composition of the soaked samples were evaluated by using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD). Poled samples showed two different charged surfaces, negatively-charged surface (N-PLLA) and positively-charged surface (P-PLLA). On the N-PLLA surfaces, SEM together with XRD showed a gradually formed calcium phosphate (Ca-P), while no obvious Ca-P on either P-PLLA or unpoled samples was observed. This study demonstrated that poled piezoelectric PLLA substrates induce substantially higher level of Ca-P formation than electrically neutral substrates and only N-PLLA, however, can improve Ca-P formation after immersion in SCS.