Maik Mracek

The effect of friction reduction in presence of ultrasonic vibrations and its relevance to travelling wave ultrasonic motors.

In many ultrasonic applications frictional effects play an important role (e.g. ultrasonic machining, ultrasonic motors). For optimising the applications in terms of quality, efficiency and lifetime it is important to understand the frictional coupling of the vibrating and the non-vibrating part. This contribution is devoted to give an explanation for the reduction of friction forces which is often observed when ultrasonic vibrations are superimposed to macroscopic motions. Usually adopted coefficients of friction are used for modelling such conditions suggesting special frictional mechanisms for high frequency oscillations, whereas the present paper shows that Coulombs friction law provides a very good description of the observed phenomena if the kinematics of the system is taken into account. Two systems are investigated. In the first system the ultrasonic and macroscopic movements are parallel and in the second they are perpendicular to each other but also within the plane of contact. Both systems were investigated analytically and experimentally using a specially designed test rig. The measurements confirmed the analytically derived equations and therefore the validity of Coulombs friction law even for ultrasonic conditions.

A novel approach for high power ultrasonic linear motors

Several positioning tasks demand translatory drive instead of rotary motion. To achieve drives that are capable e.g. to drive the sunroof of a car or to lift a cars window, multiple miniaturized motors can be combined. But in this case many other questions arise: the electromechanical behavior of the individual motors differs slightly, the motor characteristics are strongly dependent on the driving parameters and the driven load, many applications need some extra power for special cases like overcoming higher forces periodically. Thus, the bundle of motors has to act well organized and controlled to get an optimized drive that is not oversized and costly.

Self Configuration of a Novel Miniature Ultrasonic Linear Motor

Rotary ultrasonic motors have found broad industrial application in camera lens drives and other systems. Linear ultrasonic motors in contrast have only found limited applications. The main reason for the limited range of application of these very attractive devices seems to be their small force and power range. Attempts to build linear ultrasonic motors for high forces and high power applications have not been truly successful yet. To achieve drives, larger force and higher power, and multiple miniaturized motors can be combined. This approach, however, is not as simple as it appears at first glance. The electromechanical behavior of individual motors differs slightly due to manufacturing and assembly tolerances. Individual motor characteristics are strongly dependent on the driving parameters (frequency, voltage, temperature, pre-stress, etc.) and the driven load and the collective behavior of the swarm of motors is not just the linear superposition of the individual drive’s forces.