Giacomo Moretti

In cooperation with Saarland University, Germany (possibility of spending a visiting period) 

The objective of this thesis is to support an ongoing PhD project (Saarland Uni.) that aims to develop fully-flexible wearable interfaces for tactile and acoustic feedback, based on dielectric elastomers. The student will be responsible of design/modelling activities (structural modelling, FEM, electro-elastic models) and will have the opportunity to validate their designs experimentally. 

This activity aims to provide fundamental insight into a new class of high performance electrostatic actuators, called fluid gap transducers, which are variable capacitors embedding dielectric polymer and fluid layers.

We aim to systematically investigate the influence of different material properties on the actuators performance. The candidate will support the activity of a PhD student by designing a setup for the charaterisation of the force in zipping multi-layer dielectrics, and perform tests on different materials combinations (dielectric polymers and fluids)

This activity aims to provide fundamental insight into a new class of high performance electrostatic actuators, called fluid gap transducers (FGTs), which are variable capacitors embedding dielectric polymer and fluid layers.

We aim to develop lumped-parameter models able to describe the interplay between the mechanical and the electrical dynamics in FGTs. The candidate will support the activity of a PhD student by setting up dynamical models of FGTs (using Matlab, Simulink) and validate them experimentally. 

Electrostatic energy harvesters, such as dielectric elastomer generators, are a promising technology that allows converting mechanical energy into electrical energy, with possible applications ranging from micro-scale harvesting from human motion up to large-scale wave energy conversion.

This work aims to investigate fundamentals mechanisms and deliver advanced control logics to optimise the efficiency and power capture performance of electrostatic harvesters. The candidate will carry out theoretical analyses and numerical dynamical simulations, possibly leading to an experimental implementation.