Michael T. Petralia's blog

I am preforming my research at the Microrobotics Laboratory. Here I am will be designing systems for a micromechanical fish. One of the researchers in the lab has been prototpying a design for the fin mechanism. For this project, I plan to analyze and optimize her design using ABAQUS. The need for this is clear: due to the size and inertia restrictions of working on the millimeter scale, it is important to not overdesign the systems. We will be working near the limits of the materials.

I found this paper on Vibrations of a Cantilever Beam.  Thought I would share it with the rest of the class.  

http://em-ntserver.unl.edu/Mechanics-Pages/Scott-Whitney/325hweb/Beams…

Cheers.

It's a bit hard to recommend a text, when I have yet to find one that I really love. Currently I am working from Advanced Strength and Applied Elasticity by A.C. Ugural & S.K. Fenster. It contains all of the relevant information, though I find the explanations of the concepts a bit slim. So far is has covered all of topics we covered in class. The first four chapters seem the most relevent. These are titled Analysis of Stress; Strain and Stress-Strain Relations; Two-Dimensional Problems in Elasticity; and Failure Criteria. The rest of the text deals with more specific topics (torsion, bending, plastic behavior, etc.).

Here is a link to the Amazon page, where the book gets mediocore reviews.

I completed my undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, in New York City. At the undergraduate level, I have taken two courses related to solid mechanics: Solid Mechanics and Stress & Applied Elasticity. Though these courses covered most of the same topics, the focus was not on working with developing the equations for different situations. The majority of the work was in knowing when to apply the equations and coming up with quantitative solutions. Thus my weaknesses will be related to coming up with equations to model various stress situations.

Concerning my research, I am working with Prof. Robert Wood in the microrobotics laboratory. My focus will be on aquatic robots on the order of several centimeters in length. Because of the restrictions inherent in working at this scale, it will be important not to over-design the systems. From studying solid mechanics, I hope to gain the ability to analyze the states of stress and strain in materials such that I can effectively develop efficient systems for microrobotics.