Multi-scale Design Of An Actuator With Thermal-mechanical Energy Conversion And Coupling

Design of a multi-scale actuator which employs Casimir effect
at nano/micro scale in order to provide actuation at
meso/macro scale is addressed in this paper. Application of
quantum effects at nano scale is beneficial at macro scale in a
multi-scale scheme as a novel approach in designing high
efficient devices. Casimir effect is found only at sub-micron
scale. However it can offer an efficient source of input to a
system at meso/macro scale. Manipulating the Casimir energy
by optical sources has been utilized for the first time in
designing a multi-scale actuator, in this paper. A Casimir
oscillator which converts mechanical work to heat due to
friction is designed at micro/nano scale. A thermal-mechanical
energy coupling mechanism couples the nano/micro scale
output to the meso/macro scale in order to provide actuation.
Although friction is considered as a waste of energy in a
system, it can provide an ideal coupling mechanism in a multiscale
scheme which avoids physical mechanical connections.
The concept of thermal-mechanical coupling in multi-scale
design of this system is inspired by the Multi-scale Nonequilibrium
Molecular Dynamics (MS-NEMD) technique
which couples the molecular dynamics at the molecular scale
to the coarse-scale model at the macro scale. This paper offers
a novel and efficient actuation system. The generated power at
the nano/micro scale, as computed, shows the feasibility of
designing such a multi-scale actuator.