ES240 Semester Project Proposal: Finding mechanical resonance modes of various electrode configurations

I have a problem in my research that involves a platinum electrode which will form bubbles of hydrogen gas.  Bubbles sticking to the electrode is expected to be a problem, and one method of dealing with this is to induce resonant vibrations in the electrode.  These vibrations can be excited by running an alternating current through the electrode, which produces physical forces through electromagnetic interactions.

I plan to model several electrode shapes in ABAQUS with the aim of extracting the applicable resonant frequencies.  I will also try to investigate how these frequencies are affected by different scaling factors. 

References:

Yildirim.  "Free Vibration of Uniaxial Composite Cylindrical Helical Springs with Circular Section."  Journal of Sound and Vibration.

Becker, Chassie, and Cleghorn.  "On the Natural Frequencies of Helical Compressino Springs."  International Journal of Mechanical Sciences. 

Please note that the videos referenced in the powerpoint presentation can be found at this link:

http://frank.harvard.edu/~pratheev/my_files/