Proceedings of the ASME 2007 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference IDETC/CIE 2007 September 4-7, 2007, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA DETC2007-35426 MECHANICAL DOMAIN PARAMETRIC AMPLIFICATION Jeffrey F. Rhoads∗ Nicholas J. Miller Department of Mechanical Engineering Department of Mechanical Engineering Michigan State University Michigan State University East Lansing, Michigan 48824 East Lansing, Michigan 48824 Email:
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[email protected] Steven W. Shaw Brian F. Feeny Department of Mechanical Engineering Department of Mechanical Engineering Michigan State University Michigan State University East Lansing, Michigan 48824 East Lansing, Michigan 48824 Email:
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[email protected] ABSTRACT plications of parametric amplification in macroscale mechanical Though utilized for more than fifty years in a variety of systems. power and communication systems, parametric amplification, the process of amplifying a harmonic signal with a parametric pump, has received very little attention in the mechanical engi- INTRODUCTION neering community. In fact, only within the past fifteen to twenty years has the technique been implemented in micromechanical Parametric amplification, the process of amplifying an ex- systems as a means of amplifying the output of resonant micro- ternal, harmonic signal with a parametric pump, is a well es- transducers. While the vast potential of parametric amplifica- tablished concept in the field of electrical engineering, where tion has been demonstrated, to date, in a number of micro- and it has been employed for more than fifty years in applications nano-mechanical systems (as well as a number electrical sys- ranging from power and communication systems to Josephson tems), few, if any, macroscale mechanical amplifiers have been junctions [1, 2].