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Abstract This paper presents an experimental study on a novel mechanical surface treatment process, namely piezo vibration striking treatment (PVST), which is realized by a piezo stack vibration device installed on a computer numerical control (CNC) machine. Unlike other striking-based surface treatments, PVST employs non-resonant mode piezo vibration to induce controllable tool strikes on the workpiece surface. In this study, an experimental setup of PVST is implemented. Four types of experiments, i.e., tool-surface approaching, single-spot striking, one-dimensional (1D) scan striking, and 2D scan striking, are conducted to investigate the relationships among the striking force, tool vibration displacement, and surface deformation in PVST. The study shows that PVST can induce strikes with consistent intensity in each cycle of tool vibration. Both the striking intensity and striking location can be well controlled. Such process capability is particularly demonstrated by the resulting texture and roughness of the treated surfaces. Moreover, two linear force relationships have been found in PVST. The first linear relationship is between the striking force and the reduction in vibration amplitude during striking. The second one is between the striking force and the permanent indentation depth created by the strike. These linear force relationships offer the opportunity to realize real-timemore »monitoring and force-based feedback control of PVST. This study is the first step toward developing PVST as a more efficient deformation-based surface modification process.« less

While vat photopolymerization has many advantages over soft lithography in fabricating microfluidic devices, including efficiency and shape complexity, it has difficulty achieving well-controlled micrometer-sized (smaller than 100 μm) channels in the layer building direction. The considerable light penetration depth of transparent resin leads to over-curing that inevitably cures the residual resin inside flow channels, causing clogs. In this paper, a 3D printing process — in-situ transfer vat photopolymerization is reported to solve this critical over-curing issue in fabricating microfluidic devices. We demonstrate microchannels with highZ-resolution (within 10 μm level) and high accuracy (within 2 μm level) using a general method with no requirements on liquid resins such as reduced transparency nor leads to a reduced fabrication speed. Compared with all other vat photopolymerization-based techniques specialized for microfluidic channel fabrication, our universal approach is compatible with commonly used 405 nm light sources and commercial photocurable resins. The process has been verified by multifunctional devices, including 3D serpentine microfluidic channels, microfluidic valves, and particle sorting devices. This work solves a critical barrier in 3D printing microfluidic channels using the high-speed vat photopolymerization process and broadens the material options. It also significantly advances vat photopolymerization’s use in applications requiring small gaps with high accuracy in theZ-direction.

Mechanosensitivity is one of the essential functionalities of biological ion channels. Synthesizing an artificial nanofluidic system to mimic such sensations will not only improve our understanding of these fluidic systems but also inspire applications. In contrast to the electrohydrodynamic ion transport in long nanoslits and nanotubes, coupling hydrodynamical and ion transport at the single-atom thickness remains challenging. Here, we report the pressure-modulated ion conduction in graphene nanopores featuring nonlinear electrohydrodynamic coupling. Increase of ionic conductance, ranging from a few percent to 204.5% induced by the pressure—an effect that was not predicted by the classical linear coupling of molecular streaming to voltage-driven ion transport—was observed experimentally. Computational and theoretical studies reveal that the pressure sensitivity of graphene nanopores arises from the transport of capacitively accumulated ions near the graphene surface. Our findings may help understand the electrohydrodynamic ion transport in nanopores and offer a new ion transport controlling methodology.