MODEL-BASED FLOW PROPERTY ESTIMATION USING AN IONIC POLYMER-METAL COMPOSITE BEAM

Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite (IPMC) material is capable of producing electrical current signal closely correlated to its mechanical movement due to redistribution of the free ions inside the IPMC material. Motivated by the potential applications of this intrinsic characteristic of IPMC beams to automotive engines for flow property measurements, such as fuel flow viscosity, this paper presents a finite-element dynamic model of an IPMC beam and uses it to estimate the fluid properties based upon the measured IPMC signal using the least squares minimization approach. The results show that with the distinct output signals of the IPMC beam under different fluid media, the identified flow properties (such as drag coefficient) have a good agreement with the actual fluid properties. This is very important for automotive applications when the characteristics of the fuel blend (such as gasoline and ethanol) need to be identified.