Energy Harvesting With Piezoelectric Nanobrushes: Analysis and Design Principles

The development of self-powered electronic devices is essential for emerging technologies such as wireless sensor networks, wearable electronics, and microrobotics. Of particular interest is the rapidly growing field of piezoelectric energy harvesting (PEH), in which mechanical strains are converted to electricity. Recently, PEH has been demonstrated by brushing an array of piezoelectric nanowires against a nanostructured surface. The piezoelectric nanobrush generator can be limited to sub-micron dimensions and thus allows for a vast reduction in the size of self-powered devices. Moreover, energy harvesting is controlled through contact between the nanowire tips and nanostructured surface, which broadens the design space to a wealth of innovations in tribology. Here we propose design criteria based on principles of contact mechanics, elastic rod theory, and continuum piezoelasticity.

Hydrodynamic Pressure of Thrust Step Bearings

Step bearings are frequently used in industry for better load capacity. Analytical solutions to the Rayleigh step bearing and a rectangular slider with a finite width are available in literature, but none for a fan-shaped thrust step bearing. This study starts with a known solution to the Laplace equation in a cylindrical coordinate system, which is in the form of infinite summation. An analytical solution to pressure is derived in this paper for hydrodynamic lubrication problems encountered in the fan-shaped step bearing. The presented solutions can be useful for designers to maximize bearing performance as well as for researchers to benchmark numerical lubrication models.

A Coupled Approach for Modelling Rolling Contact Fatigue Cracks Under Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication

In this paper we present a coupled method for modelling fluid-solid interaction within a crack generated in rolling contact fatigue (RCF) in the presence of lubrication. The technique describes the fluid flow in the contact area and within the crack and explores how this affects the elastic deformation of the solid while the moving load traverses the cracked region. It is argued that this approach sheds light on the instantaneous response of the system, therefore providing a more physically-accurate description of the phenomenon under investigation.

Abrasive Wear Behavior of Permanent Moulded Toughened Austempered Ductile Iron

Laboratory abrasive wear tests have been reported on permanent moulded toughened austempered ductile iron. The influence of austempering temperature on the abrasive wear behavior have been studied and discussed. The results indicate that with increase in austempering temperature from 300°C to 350°C, the abrasive wear resistance increased, and as the austempering temperature increased to 400°C, there was reduction in the abrasive wear resistance. These results have been interpreted based on the structural features and graphite morphology.

Fretting Wear of CMSX4 at Blade Tip Interface With and Without Coating

Fretting wear is a complex phenomenon that occurs at component interfaces that are subjected to low amplitude oscillation under high contact pressure. In turbomachinery fretting occurs also at the blade tip interfaces where shrouds, that have the aim to reduce the blade resonant vibration amplitude, are machined. To diminish the fretting damage coatings are applied to the blade tips. The aim of this study is to compare the fretting wear behaviour of single crystal CMSX-4 superalloy interfaces with and without plasma sprayed T-800 coating. Experiments have been conducted with hemispherical surface in contact with a flat surface of the same materials at temperature of 800 °C. The hysteresis cycles have been measured through the experiment. The comparison of the hysteresis cycles shown that the tangential contact stiffness of the coated surfaces is greater then that of the surfaces without coating. At the end of wear process, the mating surfaces have been characterized by three-dimensional optical interferometry and SEM analysis. After 10×106 wear cycles, the uncoated surfaces show a large change in the contact parameters and fretting cracks on the flat surface. On the other hand, the coated surfaces do not shows a measurable change in the contact parameters while the coating damage on the flat surface leads to predict an incipient catastrophic wear.

An Energy Approach for Helping the Selection of Solid Lubrication Coatings Under Fretting Conditions

Employing friction reduction coatings is one of the most effective methods to palliate the fretting damage. However, facing numerous available coatings, how to compare them and select the optimum one for a specific application is still a challenging task. In this paper, based on the investigation of the fretting behaviors of several bonded solid lubricant coatings, an energy approach in terms of “initial maximal dissipated energy density” was suggested to compare the tribological response of coatings. According to test results, the lifetime of each coating under different test parameters can be fitted by one master curve. The definition of this master curve for a given coating may be used for the prediction of the coating lifetime only by knowing the initial energy dissipated in the contact. The comparison of different master curves for different coatings can be employed to help the coating selection.

Nanostructured Diamond Coatings for Dry Drilling

In this study, nanostructured diamond (NSD) films were grown, by microwave plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition (MP-CVD) technology, on WC-Co drills for performance enhancement in dry drilling of A390 alloys. Surface cobalt was removed by a well-controlled precision etching process. H2/CH4 gas mixture with a small amount of N2 was applied to produce NSD films. Moreover, slight hone was applied to the cutting edges prior to the NSD deposition to relieve residual stresses generated by thermal mismatch in depositions. The results show feasibility of dry drilling of A390 alloys by NSD coated drills, substantially outperforming carbide drills.

Effect of Body Lateral Extension Upon the Elastic Contact

Half-space contact theory cannot be applied when either contacting bodies are thin or they possess small transversal dimensions. The former situation is often dealt with, but the latter seems to be neglected. This paper investigates the effect of outer radius of cylindrical bodies upon the contact stress field. The method consists in adding supplementary displacements and stresses to the half-space solution in order to fulfill the boundary conditions and the force balance equation on load direction. It is found that the half-space theory is applicable if transversal radius exceeds contact radius.

An Indirect Boundary Element Formulation for the Solution of Coupled 2D Contact Problems

An indirect boundary element scheme is employed for the first time to solve two-dimensional, frictional contact problems in the presence of coupling between normal and tangential tractions due to material mismatch and/or geometrical characteristics of the problem under investigation. A fully incremental contact algorithm is used which accounts for changes in the contact regime and the deformed shape of the bodies. The developed algorithm is first validated against the analytical solution obtained for a rigid flat and rounded tilted punch indenting an elastic finite body. The extension of the formulation to treat surface and subsurface cracks, wear and large deformations is also discussed.

Explicit Finite Element Simulation of Granular Flow in an Annular Shear Cell

Explicit finite element method modeling of granular flow behavior in an annular shear cell has been studied and presented in this paper. The explicit finite element method (FEM) simulations of granular flow in an annular shear cell with around 1633 particles were performed, where the inner wheel rotated at a very high speed and the outer disk remained stationary. The material properties of the particles and the outer wheel were defined as elastic steel whereas the inner wheel was elastic aluminum. In this investigation, the explicit FEM model mimicked granular flow in an experimental set up where the inner wheel was rotated at a speed of 240 rpm. The FEM results for shearing motion and solid fraction were compared with experimental results from a granular shear cell.