Solved projects

Composite materials representing the main material group used in aviation. Compound of composite materials overcome 50% of aircraft construction materials for big airliners and reach 100% in a small sports aircraft. Scope of this project is to analyse possibility of using build-in contactless sensors based on magnetic microwires for state diagnostic of small aircraft composite construction. Project scope is continuing of successful project VEGA 1/0286/13, focused on contactless sensors of tensile stress in composite materials, linked to successful project APVV-0266-10 and EDA-ICET (European Defence Agency) SESAMO (Sensors for Structural Monitoring). Such sensors have similar dimensions and almost similar surface than composite materials fibres used in aircraft constructions, thus its embedding into construction do not create any structural defects.

Magnetic microwires are modern materials research of which is worldwide developed and by far not finished. They are composite materials, which consist of a metal core (with the dimension of 1 - 50 micrometres) and of a glass coated (with the thickness of 2 - 20 micrometres). One of the multiple potential possibilities is their utilization in the area of weak magnetic fields measurements in the role of primary power convertors. Miniature dimensions and ideal axial symmetry makes them suitable candidates for the sensing elements of RTD (Resident Time Difference) fluxgate magnetometers. However microwire characteristics are considerably dependent on their chemical composition and thermomagnetic treatment therefore intensive research for the optimality achievement in this application is necessary. With the continuously on-going research and development of sensors in addition to the apparent trend of miniaturization also the need of intelligent output signals processing is connected because that is the way how also from the low-cost and available sensors precise "smart sensors" can be made. Modern technological solutions of RTD magnetometers, design and verification of selected innovative measuring methods and calibration procedures are therefore a part of the project.

Small unmanned aerial vehicles open a wide range of innovative applications. Nowadays they are considered to be a key future technology. Their construction is based on modern technologies using "rapid prototyping" and their wide applicability is based on the implementation of modern, dynamically developing information and communication technologies "Internet of things" with the goal to develop knowledge and skills of students of the Faculty of Aeronautics. The project is focused on the integration of theoretical and practical knowledge into the educational process with the emphasis placed on the practical utilization of modern construction technologies and applications of unmanned aerial vehicles. The project expect of the conception preparation and study documentation also includes a web page creation, e-course creation, academic textbook publication, existing laboratories for practical preparation of students reconstruction and equipment.

Carbon and glass composite materials - laminates are nowadays one of the basic construction materials. Their wide enhancement by pipes, pressure tanks, ship fuselages and airframes or missiles construction results into the need to sense internal mechanical stresses induced by strain, ageing or in-situ by their production. The goal of the project is to design and electronically realize miniature contact-less sensors - tensometers based on the amorphous or nanocrystalline magnetic microwires, which thanks to their dimensions can be embedded between the layers of composite materials. Magnetic microwires are form the dimensions, fibre structure and glass coat point of view almost identical with the own composite fibre, which results into the minimum probability of parasitic internal defects creation.

The SEMAMID project is focused on applied research and development of modern magnetic sensors based on magnetic microwires for selected industrial application, such for examples conveyor belt diagnostic systems or monitoring of material structures – as for example missile, aircraft, reservoir structures made from composites.

Changes that globalization brings effects everybody who works in the education process. ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and Internet opened a completely new way of education for different institutions including educational and academic ones. The next stage of the development of education is thus connected with intense utilization of information and communication technologies, where Internet offers very powerful tools, which brings important changes not only in the educational area but also in every area of our life. The main task of the project is to use all these available tools for creation of integrated platform for multimedia and e-education in the area of the sensors' manufacturing and characteristics and of their synergic utilization in the area of biomedical engineering for healthy and also handicapped students in the same way.

The submitted project is devoted to the applied research in the field of novel magnetic materials for sensor applications. Its main goal is a development of several original types of magnetic sensors based on these materials. It is expected that such sensors could be used in a wider operational range and will exhibit higher sensitivity as well as improved heat and noise characteristics. Together with the electronics of the signal processing unit, they will be designed mainly for a manufacturing of the new generation of the indicators of unwanted metals (mostly ferro-magnetic substances) on excavators of open-pit mine conveyers.

The project was solved in co-operation of three universities and three companies from the Slovakia and Spain. The main goal is creation of a prototype of a magnetic coding system and of contactless decoding of goods and persons on the basis of magnetic microwires. The main tasks fulfilled by our Department are:

Analysis and synthesis of results obtained by the solution of mentioned tasks allows evaluation of expected extension of the magnetic microwires' applicability in the role of safety and protecting switches.

The subject of project is to study the behaviour of classical sintered ferritic materials with the density cca 7 g.cm^-3 under contact fatigue and wear conditions. Sintered materials, by their specific structure (presence of pores), are known for their different responses to different forms of stresses. These facts along with the intensive expansion in production of spare parts on the basis of sintered materials, mostly in automotive industry, call for both basic research and systematic monitoring of attributes affecting service life of materials under stress. The results achieved will widen the area of knowledge in this field and assist in establishing the priorities of main directions of basic or applied research.

The main goal of the project is to build a modern complex virtual and real laboratory of sensorics and safety and security systems. This complex laboratory is equipped with perspective IT, SW products for visualization, simulation and modeling and also with supplementary basic sensor and measurement equipment for physical verification of modeled processes of safety and security in different branches. The virtual part of the laboratory is operated using an independent server so to be available to potential users also outside of the maternal workstation. Thereby simultaneously also conditions for other modern forms of education are created.

The objective of the proposed project is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the effect of microstructural parameters on crack initiation, subcritical crack growth and crack propagation in newly developed Cr-Mo-Mn sintered steels under tensile and fatigue loading. The following topics will be studied in particular:

• identification of crack initiation sites and paths of subcritical crack growth in relation to pore geometry, matrix microstructural composition and microstructure and properties of prior particle boundaries;
• estimation of the stress intensity factors Ka for microcracks growing in the “short crack” regime; description of short crack behaviour under static loading as R-curves and fatigue behaviour as Paris curves;
• estimation of critical stress intensity factor K1C and hence the critical crack size employing conventional fracture mechanics;
• correlation of microscopically estimated data and theoretical analyses for critical crack size.

The appropriate modification of chemical and microstructural compositions and/or processing conditions for improving both monotonic and fatigue properties of the tested steels will be investigated. It is expected that the results of the project will be used for reliable prediction of composition and processing of these Cr-Mo-Mn alloyed sintered steels to attain high resistance to subcritical and critical crack growth, and hence with improved both static and fatigue properties.

The disinterest in the university study of technical specializations including electronics has become the all-European problem. Furthermore bachelor graduates are only weakly prepared for the practice. The project wants to propose an alternative to a possible solution of insinuated problems by the change of the content and study methods change in the Electronics specialization, specifically in the study program Sensorics, by the proposal of integration of selected parts of study, by distinguished exploitation of computer simulations and multimedia, by the shift of the emphasis on the encompassment and user acquisition of SW tools such as Matlab – Simulink, Mathematica, Multisim, QuckField and so on for rigorous qualitative, physical and system understanding of the study issue also on the so called popular scientific base.