Conveying of lightweight and delicate parts is an important issue in some manufacturing processes. Two levitation devices, one based on horn transducer (Langevin type) and the other one in the form of a plain rectangular plate made of aluminium firmly fastened at both ends with a surface-mounted piezoelectric actuator, are compared. Both devices operate on a squeeze-film levitation mechanism. To this end, physical experiments were carried out and it was found that the device utilizing horn-type transducer yields better levitation performance.
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