Abstract
High frequency relative vibrations of closely spaced flat surfaces create a repelling force that can be used to hold the surfaces apart. As this research shows, the dynamics of the surrounding surfaces and enclosed air-layer are highly coupled. Contrary to what was assumed in the past, the division of the excitation frequency range into spring- and damper-like regions is inaccurate in the presence of vibration of mechanically flexible surrounding surfaces. A laboratory set-up was built and modeled by means of several coupled sub-models consisting of a piezoelectric part, a mechanical amplifier and the levitated object. while a finite-difference scheme is being used to compute the distributed pressure in the air-layer.
