Self-Excited Oscillations of Structures by Particle Emission

This paper studies the self-excited oscillations of structures by alphaparticle emission. Alpha particles emitting from a source exert a smallmechanical force on the structure. This force is analogous to theso-called follower force which is known to cause structure flutter andcould be used as a source of mechanical power in MEMS devices. Wedevelop a dynamic model for the structure and study the stability of thestructure. The bifurcation analysis renders information about thepossible steady-states for different values of parameters. Depending onthe parameters, the structure can have stable buckled as well asunbuckled equilibria. Moreover, the model predicts stable limit cycleswhich correspond to stable flutter of the structure. Although it isdifficult to achieve the required mechanical force using alpha particleemission, the concept of generating mechanical oscillations throughejecting streams of gaseous or liquid jets is feasible.