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    PublicationOpen Access
    3D microprinting of iron platinum nanoparticle-based magnetic mobile microrobots
    (Wiley, 2021) Giltinan, Joshua; Sridhar, Varun; Bozüyük, Uğur; Sheehan, Devin; Department of Mechanical Engineering; Sitti, Metin; Faculty Member; Department of Mechanical Engineering; School of Medicine; College of Engineering; 297104
    Wireless magnetic microrobots are envisioned to revolutionize minimally invasive medicine. While many promising medical magnetic microrobots are proposed, the ones using hard magnetic materials are not mostly biocompatible, and the ones using biocompatible soft magnetic nanoparticles are magnetically very weak and, therefore, difficult to actuate. Thus, biocompatible hard magnetic micro/nanomaterials are essential toward easy-to-actuate and clinically viable 3D medical microrobots. To fill such crucial gap, this study proposes ferromagnetic and biocompatible iron platinum (FePt) nanoparticle-based 3D microprinting of microrobots using the two-photon polymerization technique. A modified one-pot synthesis method is presented for producing FePt nanoparticles in large volumes and 3D printing of helical microswimmers made from biocompatible trimethylolpropane ethoxylate triacrylate (PETA) polymer with embedded FePt nanoparticles. The 30 mu m long helical magnetic microswimmers are able to swim at speeds of over five body lengths per second at 200Hz, making them the fastest helical swimmer in the tens of micrometer length scale at the corresponding low-magnitude actuation fields of 5-10mT. It is also experimentally in vitro verified that the synthesized FePt nanoparticles are biocompatible. Thus, such 3D-printed microrobots are biocompatible and easy to actuate toward creating clinically viable future medical microrobots.
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    A front tracking method for direct numerical simulation of evaporation process in a multiphase system
    (Academic Press Inc Elsevier Science, 2017) N/A; N/A; Department of Mechanical Engineering; Irfan, Muhammad; Muradoğlu, Metin; PhD Student; Faculty Member; Department of Mechanical Engineering; Graduate School of Sciences and Engineering; College of Engineering; N/A; 46561
    A front-tracking method is developed for the direct numerical simulation of evaporation process in a liquid-gas multiphase system. One-field formulation is used to solve the flow, energy and species equations in the framework of the front tracking method, with suitable jump conditions at the interface. Both phases are assumed to be incompressible; however, the divergence-free velocity field condition is modified to account for the phase-change/mass-transfer at the interface. Both temperature and species gradient driven evaporation/phase-change processes are simulated. For the species gradient driven phase change process, the Clausius-Clapeyron equilibrium relation is used to find the vapor mass fraction and subsequently the evaporation mass flux at the interface. A number of benchmark cases are first studied to validate the implementation. The numerical results are found to be in excellent agreement with the analytical solutions for all the studied cases. The methods are then applied to study the evaporation of a static as well as a single and two droplets systems falling in the gravitational field. The methods are demonstrated to be grid convergent and the mass is globally conserved during the phase change process for both the static and moving droplet cases.
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    Publication
    A front tracking method for particle-resolved simulation of evaporation and combustion of a fuel droplet
    (Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd, 2018) N/A; N/A; Department of Mechanical Engineering; Irfan, Muhammad; Muradoğlu, Metin; PhD Student; Faculty Member; Department of Mechanical Engineering; Graduate School of Sciences and Engineering; College of Engineering; N/A; 46561
    A front-tracking method is developed for the particle-resolved simulations of droplet evaporation and combustion in a liquid-gas multiphase system. One field formulation of the governing equations is solved in the whole computational domain by incorporating suitable jump conditions at the interface. Both phases are assumed to be incompressible but the divergence-free velocity condition is modified to account for the phase change at the interface. A temperature gradient based evaporation model is used. An operator-splitting approach is employed to advance temperature and species mass fractions in time. The CHEMKIN package is incorporated into the solver to handle the chemical kinetics. The multiphase flow solver and the evaporation model are first validated using the benchmark problems. The method is then applied to study combustion of a n-heptane droplet using a single-step chemistry model and a reduced chemical kinetics mechanism involving 25-species and 26-reactions. The results are found to be in good agreement with the experimental data and the previous numerical simulations for the time history of the normalized droplet size, the gasification rate, the peak temperature and the ignition delay times. The initial flame diameter and the profile of the flame standoff ratio are also found to be compatible with the results in the literature. The method is finally applied to simulate a burning droplet moving due to gravity at various ambient temperatures and interesting results are observed about the flame blow-off.
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    A front-tracking method for computation of interfacial flows with soluble surfactants
    (Academic Press Inc Elsevier Science, 2008) Tryggvason, Gretar; Department of Mechanical Engineering; Muradoğlu, Metin; Faculty Member; Department of Mechanical Engineering; College of Engineering; 46561
    A finite-difference/front-tracking method is developed for computations of interfacial flows with soluble surfactants. The method is designed to solve the evolution equations of the interfacial and bulk surfactant concentrations together with the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations using a non-linear equation of state that relates interfacial surface tension to surfactant concentration at the interface. The method is validated for simple test cases and the computational results are found to be in a good agreement with the analytical solutions. The method is then applied to study the cleavage of drop by surfactant-a problem proposed as a model for cytokinesis [H.P. Greenspan, On the dynamics of cell cleavage, J. Theor. Biol. 65(l) (1977) 79; H.P. Greenspan, On fluid-mechanical simulations of cell division and movement, J. Theor. Biol., 70(l) (1978) 125]. Finally the method is used to model the effects of soluble surfactants on the motion of buoyancy-driven bubbles in a circular tube and the results are found to be in a good agreement with available experimental data.
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    A front-tracking method for computational modeling of impact and spreading of viscous droplets on solid walls
    (Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd, 2010) N/A; Department of Mechanical Engineering; Department of Mechanical Engineering; Muradoğlu, Metin; Taşoğlu, Savaş; Faculty Member; Faculty Member; Department of Mechanical Engineering; College of Engineering; College of Engineering; 46561; 291971
    A finite-difference/front-tracking method is developed for computational modeling of impact and spreading of a viscous droplet on dry solid walls. The contact angle is specified dynamically using the empirical correlation given by Kistler (1993). The numerical method is general and can treat non-wetting, partially wetting and fully wetting cases but the focus here is placed on the partially wetting substrates. Here the method is implemented for axisymmetric problems but it is straightforward to extend it to three dimensional cases. Grid convergence of the method is demonstrated and the validity of the dynamic contact angle method is examined. The method is first tested for the spreading and relaxation of a droplet from the initial spherical shape to its final equilibrium conditions for various values of Eotvos number. Then it is applied to impact and spreading of glycerin droplets on wax and glass substrates and, the results are compared with experimental data of Sikalo et al. (2005). The numerical results are found in a good agreement with the experimental data. Finally the effects of governing non-dimensional numbers on the spreading rate, apparent contact angle and deformation of the droplet are investigated.
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    A monolithic opto-coupler based sensor for contact force detection in artificial hand
    (Ieee, 2016) N/A; N/A; Department of Mechanical Engineering; Shams, Sarmad; Lazoğlu, İsmail; PhD Student; Faculty Member; Department of Mechanical Engineering; Graduate School of Sciences and Engineering; College of Engineering; N/A; 179391
    This paper presents a monolithic opto-coupler based force sensor design to detect the contact forces of the fingertip of the artificial hand during grasp process. Effective and precise measurement of the contact force is always a challenge for the humid and temperature varying environment. In this paper, we propose a novel design of force sensor with optical technique. The optical technique is preferred over other techniques because of its simpler electronics and less immunity to temperature variation under humid environment. Simulation results conducted using Finite Element Method (FEM) analysis confirmed the deflection is linear for the forces from 0 to +/- 100 N. The maximum stress found at 100 N is 252.39 MPa. Also, modal analysis is performed to ensure the sensor is durable and operative while handling different vibrating objects. Calibration experiment of the sensor is performed using multipoint calibration process and curve fitting technique.
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    A new control architecture for physical human-robot interaction based on haptic communication
    (Ieee, 2014) N/A; N/A; Department of Mechanical Engineering; Aydın, Yusuf; Arghavani, Nasser; Başdoğan, Çağatay; PhD Student; PhD Student; Faculty Member; Department of Mechanical Engineering; Graduate School of Sciences and Engineering; Graduate School of Sciences and Engineering; College of Engineering; 328776; N/A; 125489
    In the near future, humans and robots are expected to perform collaborative tasks involving physical interaction in various different environments such as homes, hospitals, and factories. One important research topic in physical Human-Robot Interaction (pHRI) is to develop tacit and natural haptic communication between the partners. Although there are already several studies in the area of Human-Robot Interaction, the number of studies investigating the physical interaction between the partners and in particular the haptic communication are limited and the interaction in such systems is still artificial when compared to natural human-human collaboration. Although the tasks involving physical interaction such as the table transportation can be planned and executed naturally and intuitively by two humans, there are unfortunately no robots in the market that can collaborate and perform the same tasks with us. In this study, we propose a new controller for the robotic partner that is designed to a) detect the intentions of the human partner through haptic channel using a fuzzy controller b) adjust its contribution to the task via a variable impedance controller and c) resolve the conflicts during the task execution by controlling the internal forces. The results of the simulations performed in Simulink/Matlab show that the proposed controller is superior to the stand-alone standard/variable impedance controllers.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    A new haptic interaction and visualization approach for rigid molecular docking in virtual environments
    (Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Press, 2008) Department of Mechanical Engineering; Subaşı, Erk; Başdoğan, Çağatay; Faculty Member; Department of Mechanical Engineering; College of Engineering; N/A; 125489
    Many biological activities take place through the physicochemical interaction of two molecules. This interaction occurs when one of the molecules finds a suitable location on the surface of the other for binding. This process is known as molecular docking, and it has applications to drug design. If we can determine which drug molecule binds to a particular protein, and how the protein interacts with the bonded molecule, we can possibly enhance or inhibit its activities. This information, in turn, can be used to develop new drugs that are more effective against diseases. In this paper, we propose a new approach based on a human-computer interaction paradigm for the solution of the rigid body molecular docking problem. In our approach, a rigid ligand molecule (i.e., drug) manipulated by the user is inserted into the cavities of a rigid protein molecule to search for the binding cavity, while the molecular interaction forces are conveyed to the user via a haptic device for guidance. We developed a new visualization concept, Active Haptic Workspace (AHW), for the efficient exploration of the large protein surface in high resolution using a haptic device having a small workspace. After the discovery of the true binding site and the rough alignment of the ligand molecule inside the cavity by the user, its final configuration is calculated off-line through time stepping molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. At each time step, the optimum rigid body transformations of the ligand molecule are calculated using a new approach, which minimizes the distance error between the previous rigid body coordinates of its atoms and their new coordinates calculated by the MD simulations. The simulations are continued until the ligand molecule arrives at the lowest energy configuration. Our experimental studies conducted with six human subjects testing six different molecular complexes demonstrate that given a ligand molecule and five potential binding sites on a protein surface, the subjects can successfully identify the true binding site using visual and haptic cues. Moreover, they can roughly align the ligand molecule inside the binding cavity such that the final configuration of the ligand molecule can be determined via the proposed MD simulations.
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    A new model and direct slicer for lattice structures
    (Springer, 2021) N/A; N/A; Department of Mechanical Engineering; Mustafa, Syed Shahid; Lazoğlu, İsmail; PhD Student; Faculty Member; Department of Mechanical Engineering; Manufacturing and Automation Research Center (MARC); Graduate School of Sciences and Engineering; College of Engineering; N/A; 179391
    This paper presents a model for generating strut-based lattice structures using topology optimization and their efficient direct slicing. These structures exhibit better physical properties and can represent the partial densities at the macro-scale level, which often appear in designs based on topology optimization. The fabrication of such large member structures with intricate geometries is possible by the additive manufacturing technologies which offer design freedom to produce the optimized parts for engineering applications. However, these structures generate millions of planer manifolds describing the strut members and result in large data files, thus making conventional procedures in additive manufacturing highly ineffective. Therefore, the design process for such structures requires efficient data manipulation and storage of the lattice topology. In the current work, a mathematical model for the strut primitive which connects two nodes in a cell is developed. Based on the proposed strut model, a structural optimization formulation is presented for lattice structures design under volume fraction constraint. A matrix-oriented compact data structure to express the lattice topology and the direct slicing algorithm which makes queries on the proposed compact data structure is presented as part of this work. The slicing kernel has been tailored for parallel implementation to handle engineering-scale applications which often consist of structures over a million struts. The article is organized into the "Introduction" section explaining the requirement and the novelty of this work. Following which, the automated design framework based on topology optimization procedure for lattice structures is given. The mathematical derivations and data structure of the strut-based lattice will be explained and the operations on model data for the direct slicing procedure are elaborated. Numerical experiments verifying the proposed method will be presented toward the end.
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    A new robust consistent hybrid finite-volume/particle method for solving the PDF model equations of turbulent reactive flows
    (Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd, 2014) Department of Mechanical Engineering; Sheikhsarmast, Reza Mokhtarpoor; Türkeri, Hasret; Muradoğlu, Metin; PhD Student; PhD Student; Faculty Member; Department of Mechanical Engineering; Graduate School of Sciences and Engineering; Graduate School of Sciences and Engineering; College of Engineering; N/A; N/A; 46561
    A new robust hybrid finite-volume (FV)/particle method is developed for solving joint probability density function (JPDF) model equations of statistically stationary turbulent reacting flows. The method is designed to remedy the deficiencies of the hybrid algorithm developed by Muradoglu et al. (1999, 2001). The density-based FV solver in the original hybrid algorithm has been found to be excessively dissipative and yet not very robust. To remedy these deficiencies, a pressure-based PISO algorithm in the open source FV package, OpenFOAM, is used to solve the Favre-averaged mean mass and momentum equations while a particle-based Monte Carlo algorithm is employed to solve the fluctuating velocity-turbulence frequency-compositions JPDF transport equation. The mean density is computed as a particle field and passed to the FV method. Thus the redundancy of the density fields in the original hybrid method is removed making the new hybrid algorithm more consistent at the numerical solution level. The new hybrid algorithm is first applied to simulate non-swirling cold and reacting bluff-body flows. The convergence of the method is demonstrated. In contrast with the original hybrid method, the new hybrid algorithm is very robust with respect to grid refinement and achieves grid convergence without any unphysical vortex shedding in the cold bluff-body flow case. In addition, the results are found to be in good agreement with the earlier PDF calculations and also with the available experimental data. Finally the new hybrid algorithm is successfully applied to simulate the more complicated Sydney swirling bluff-body flame 'SM1'. The method is also very robust for this difficult test case and the results are in good agreement with the available experimental data. In all the cases, the PISO-FV solver is found to be highly resilient to the noise in the mean density field extracted from the particles.