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PROJECT ME-05:
ACTIVELY TUNED RESONATOR
Weekly Progress

CLICK HERE for our Preliminary Design Report

CLICK HERE for our Final Report

TIME LINE: Semster 1

WEEK DATES
1 9/5-9/7 course Intro and team selections
2 9/12-9/14 make elastomer; vibrations theory study; set up stress test; tested Piezoelectic electronics;

· Started our preliminary design report

In our first week of work, we experimented with a number of different parts and began our Preliminary Design Report. The Piezoelectronics put into the Actively Tuned Resonator are called Striped Acuators. They bend at a certain deflection which is proportional to the voltage applied to it. After soldering leads to the actuators, we applied a small, AC voltage which cause the part to vibrate at a set frequency which we could feel and hear, but not see.

3 9/19-9/21 preliminary design report due; test elastomer; design mold; experimented with Pulse software

· Completed our weekly progress report
· Completed and handed in our preliminary design report
· Ordered the kits to make the elastomer
· Discussed possible materials as well as shapes for our beam, and limited them
down to two of our choices for each
· Came up with a preliminary design for the mold of the elastomer

This week, we upgraded the Pulse software which will allow us to test our final design.
Pulse allows easy measurement of a vibrating system by plotting the amplitude of a
voltage that is emitted by a device called an accelerometer versus the frequency of the
vibrations. The accelerometer is placed on the vibrating system and sends a voltage
to another device called the front end. The front end is a key component to running
the Pulse system, and up to four readings can be taken at once.

4 9/26-9/28 make mold; examine ways to generate 150 Volts DC

· Completed our weekly progress report
· Started reworking our preliminary design report to be handed in
· Used engineering assumption (10:1) in order to come up with the buffer for our piezoelectric within the elastomer
· Set up design for the prelininary mold-(have to talk to Chuck)
· Made batch of the new elastomer
· Used the density and volume of our proposed mold in order to calculate the mass of our elastomer and mass #2

We started to address the issue of how to apply 150 volts to our Piezoelectric device, the Striped Actuator. Each of the power supplies that we have access to only go up to 25 volts DC and at that voltage the deflection of the Striped Actuator would be unnoticable to the naked eye. We approached Professor Schmalzel to see if there were a way of generating a DC voltage this high. He recommended that we observe a circuit that causes the flash to go off in a disposable camera. The flash of that camera needs a voltage approximately equal to 330 volts, generated by a 1.5 volt battery.

5 10/3-10/5 design complete system using data from actual elastomer data; looked at marketing stategies

To aid us in the Entrepreneurial aspect of our clinic design, we filled out a form for the College of Business including a short description of our design project and an explanation of how a market study could be beneficial to our team. also, we e-mailed a sales rep from American Piezo to ask a few questions concerning the Striped Actuator. He answered our questions concerning the impedance of the SA (10 ohms to 1000 ohms), the applications of the Bias and Parrallel drive and other questions concerning the website. The sales rep, Mr. Jeff Zahnd, responded with all of the information we needed and provided useful data sheets that will prove beneficial in our final design.

6 10/10-10/12 model system using mass & spring setup; create 2nd batch of elastomer; observed the circuit
of a flash in a disposable camera

We continued to look at the characteristics of how the flash in a camera generates
the needed 330 VDC to cause the xenon flash tube to go off. Basically, a momentary
contact switch causes the voltage generated from a 1.5 Volt double A battery to enter
a transformer where the voltage is stepped up and stored in a capacitor. When the flash
is to go off, another momentary contact switch allows the voltage from the 160uF
capacitor to discharge through the xenon tube, allowing the flash to go off.

7 10/17-10-19 build a prototype system; design the circuit which will
provide a voltage of 150VDC; prepare for design reviews;

· Completed our weekly progress report
· Work out different equations in order to find equivalent spring stiffness, masses #1 and #2, beam length, as well as other parts of our system…
· Used amplitude equations to decipher the displacements on mass #2
· Decided to use plexi-glass as the material for the beam
· Performed beam bending test in order to figure out an approximate modulus for the beam
· Researching for voltage amplification circuits

8 10/24-10/26 prepare for design review

9 10/31-11/2 design review; continue building and evaluating prototype;

· Meet with a market study team to analyze possible consumers/manufacturers that are interested in our design
· Begin preliminary design of the piezoelectric control circuit

10 11/7-11/9 test prototype; evaluate ways to adjust the voltage of our circuit

· Evaluate the use of rotary switches to control the voltage of the circuit with simple adjustments.

11 11/14-11/16 continue testing and rebuild system by bringing all of the aspects of the project together

· Contacted AmericanPiezo about sending Striped Actuators with leads already attached

12 11/21-11/23 what ever needs to be done?

· Completion of mold machining
· Setup more testing on the Striped Actuator, observing force and deflection
· Began measurements of Striped Actuator wire fitting in elastomer

13 11/28-11-30 what ever needs to be done?

· Checked dimensions for completion of final composite
· Ordered parts for 150 drive circuit
· Placed elastomer composite within mold
· Began breadboarding two drive circuits based upon the circuit of a camera flash
and a 12 Volt Stroboscope

14 12/5-12/7 preperation for final presentaions and report

· Finalized the drive circuit to generate 150 volts across the piezo
· Extracted final composite from the mold
· Ran compression tests to observe the modulus of the elastomer/piezo composite
· Ran Pulse tests which observed the natural frequency of the elastomer
· Prepared for design review and final report

15 12/12-12/14 final presentations

16 12/19- final reports due