🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Bx5rKI.IMH@acsu.buffalo.edu> v071r4mh@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu writes:
>I was wondering if anyone had interseting uses for piezoelectrics that are
>different from the mainstream uses?
>Thanks,
>Brett
>(thinking of his senior thesis)


Some of the more interesting uses I have come across include:

A piezo switch for activating an LED on running shoes for safe nightime 
jogging (Reebok, ASICS, others?)

A piezo sensor to measure impact in such sporting events as pitching and golf.
Pitched (or hit) balls hit a sheet which triggers a piezo switch providing
positional and force information. (Creative Athletic Products, Des Moines, IA)
Both shoe and sports switches use Kynar (R) from Atochem Sensors, Valley Forge 
PA (I believe)

Car manufacturers use a sensor pad (maybe piezo) to use while designing car
seating. Pad is used to display the uniformity of contact to change padding
requirements to match the majority of driver sizes/weights. Also sensors
are used to measure the effectiveness of door seals, gaskets, fasteners.
(Force Imaging Technologies, Chicago IL)

Directionally Attached Piezoelectric elements (Univ. of Kansas) Ron Barrett
is working on Smart structures by making the elements have a greater stiffness
in one direction than the other--"an artificial way of making a piezo
material behave like a composite" Heavy control surfaces, like ailerons, could 
be eliminated and wing flutter could be suppressed.

Combinations of piezo materials, shape-memory alloys, magneto-strictive alloys
etc. to create an intelligent material with actuation capabilities built
into the microstructures to increase performance and decrease mass and energy
requirements. (Center for Intelligent Mat'ls, Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and 
State Univ. Craig Rogers; and Univ. Kansas above)

Piezo-electric beams for walking micro-robots. (Johannes Smits Boston Univ)

That just about exhausts my list, any more uses out there?
-- 
                                                          Doug Monroe
                   				       dwm@pruxl.att.com
  						 or   monwel@cbnewsk.att.com