Dr. Stewart Sherrit

 

 

Biography
Dr. Stewart Sherrit is a Principal Member of Technical Staff at JPL's Advanced Technologies Group.  Dr. Sherrit received his B.Sc. in engineering physics (Nuclear-Mechanical option), M.Sc. (Solid State Physics-Thermoelectric Conversion) and PhD (Physics: Characterization of losses, dispersion and field dependence of piezoelectric materials.) from Queen's University, Kingston. Canada.  Prior to joining JPL in Sept. 1998 as a Cal-Tech Post-Doctoral Scholar he worked in the Applied Solid State Research Group at Queen's as a research engineer involved in thin film piezoelectric and ferroelectric devices. In 1988, he moved to the Physics Department at the Royal Military College of Canada where he was involved in developing new techniques to characterize bulk electromechanical materials.  In May 2001 he became a full-time member of the technical staff at JPL.  He has coauthored 17 book chapters, over 200 papers, 70 NASA Tech Briefs and 135 New Technology Reports and 26 patents.  He is the co-inventor of the USDC whose patented technology is used in the “Cyberwand”, a large stone lithotripter which has been credited with saving lives.   He has been a principal investigator, task manager or lead engineer in a variety of research tasks.  Much of his research has been involved in the development of a variety of sampling tools including the Ultrasonic Sonic Driller Corer, the Ultrasonic Rock abrasion tool, Ultrasonic powder sampler, rock crusher, Ultrasonic Gopher and Aerobot Harpoon sampler.  In the course of his research, he has participated in field trips to the Matanuska Glacier, Alaska, Lake Vida, Antarctica, Mt Hood, Oregon, Mojave Desert, Death Valley and Borrego Springs California. In addition to his research activities, he has been involved in a variety of Missions either as a consultant or an actuator designer.  He has been awarded 8 JPL TEAM awards, 4 NASA HONOR awards, a SPOT award, a JPL Mariner award and a JPL Explorer Award.  In 2015 he was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for his work on piezoelectrics for space mechanisms. 

stewart122009a

Seminar and Conference Presentations

  S. Sherrit, “Novel Applications of Piezoelectrics", Jones Seminar of Science Technology and Society, Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth University, Hanover, NH, April 12th, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAhZAw2neDs

 

Selected Publications on Piezoelectric & Electrostrictive materials prior to joining JPL

  The Use of Complex Material Constants to Model the Dynamic Response of Piezoelectric Materials (Invited) Proc. 1998 Ultrasonics Symposium. Sendai, Miyagi, Japan., Vol. 1. pp. 633-640.

http://ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/nasa-nde/nde-aa-l/blueball.gif   Accurate Evaluation of the Real and Imaginary Material Constants for a Piezoelectric Resonator in the Radial Mode, Ferroelectrics, 119, 17-32 (1991)

http://ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/nasa-nde/nde-aa-l/blueball.gif   Non-Iterative Evaluation of the Real and Imaginary Material Constants of Piezoelectric Resonators, Ferroelectrics, 134, 111-119 (1992)

http://ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/nasa-nde/nde-aa-l/blueball.gif   A Polynomial Fit for Calculating the Electromechanical Coupling Constants of Piezoelectric Materials Using the Method Described, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 91, 1770-1771 (1992)

http://ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/nasa-nde/nde-aa-l/blueball.gif   An Optical Lever Measurement of the the Piezoelectric Charge Coefficient, Ferroelectrics, 186, 25-31 (1996)

http://ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/nasa-nde/nde-aa-l/blueball.gif   Field Dependence of the Complex Piezoelectric, Dielectric, and Elastic Constants of Motorola PZT 3203 HD Ceramic, in Smart Materials Technologies, Wilbur C. Simmons, Ilhan A. Askay, Dryver R. Huston, Editors, Proc. SPIE 3040, 99-109 (1997)

http://ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/nasa-nde/nde-aa-l/blueball.gif   A Complete Characterization of the Piezoelectric, Dielectric, and Elastic Properties of Motorola PZT 3203 HD Including Losses and Dispersion, in Medical Imaging 1997: Ultrasonic Transducer Engineering, K. Kirk Shung, Editor, Proc. SPIE 3037, 158-169 (1997)

http://ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/nasa-nde/nde-aa-l/blueball.gif   An accurate equivalent circuit for the unloaded piezoelectric vibrator in the thickness mode, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 30 (1997) 2354-2363

http://ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/nasa-nde/nde-aa-l/blueball.gif   Determination of the Piezoelectric Electromechanical Coupling Constant k13 Using a Frequency Ratio Method, Ferroelectrics, 193, 89-94 (1997)

http://ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/nasa-nde/nde-aa-l/blueball.gif   Temperature Dependence of the Dielectric, Elastic and Piezoelectric Material Constants of Lead Zirconate Titanate Ceramics, Proc. of Int. Conf. on Smart Mater., Struc. and Syst., 7-10 July, 1999, Bangalore, India. pp. 121-126.

http://ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/nasa-nde/nde-aa-l/blueball.gif   An Analytical Solution for the Electromechanical Coupling constant of an Unloaded Piezoelectric Bimorph 101KB, IEEE Trans. Ultrason., Ferroelectrics and Freq. Control, 46 (3) 756-757 (1999)

http://ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/nasa-nde/nde-aa-l/blueball.gif  The Characterization and Modeling of Electrostrictive Ceramics for Transducers 283KB Ferroelectrics, 1999, 228 (1-4) 167-196

Full List of Publications

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NEm5CfwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao 

 
 
 
Dr. Stewart Sherrit
Instrument Mechanical Engineering Section 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
4800 Oak Grove Dr., MS 67-119
Pasadena, CA 91109
ph (818) 354-3891
email:ssherrit@jpl.nasa.gov

 

This homepage is maintained by the JPL's Advanced Technologies Group