An ultrasonic motor using bending vibrations of a short cylinder

An ultrasonic motor using bending vibrations of a short cylinder with free-free ends is proposed, and its performance and efficiency are discussed. The motor is small in size and realizes a high mechanical output of more than 1 W. The general principle of the motor, which uses traveling waves, is as follows. When a traveling wave propagates along an elastic object, particles at the surface move elliptically. A movable object (a slider or a rotor) pressed to the elastic object may be caused to move due to the frictional forces between it and the surface. A motor based on this principal has been constructed and studied. The vibration mode used is found to have an undesirable radial component, which restricts the efficiency of the motor to about 10% at best. A large amount of the energy supplied is lost by the slippage owing to the existence of the undesirable component. It is concluded that to derive larger output power, the frictional material needs to be carefully chosen.<>