Design and fabrication of functionally graded PZT/Pt piezoelectric bimorph actuator

A laminated piezoelectric bimorph actuator with a graded compositional distribution of PZT and Pt was fabricated, and its deflection characteristics were evaluated. Using experimentally determined compositional dependency of elastic and piezoelectric properties in the PZT/Pt composites, the modified classical lamination theory and the finite element method were applied to find the optimum compositional profile that will give a larger deflection and smaller stress, simultaneously. The miniature bimorph-type graded actuator that consists of a composite internal-electrode (PZT/30 vol% Pt) and three piezoelectric layers of different compositions (PZT/0–20 vol% Pt) were fabricated by powder stacking and sintering. The deflection of the actuator was measured using electric strain gages mounted on the top and bottom surfaces of the actuator. The deflection was found to strongly depend on the composition distribution profile. Under an applied electric field of 100 V m⁻¹, the actuator with an optimum composition profile exhibited a curvature of up to 0.03 m⁻¹, which is a satisfactory performance for this kind of actuators. The stress generated on actuation was estimated to be as low as 0.4 MPa, which is much smaller than those of conventional directly bonded actuators and will assure a long actuation life.     

Development of piezoelectric monomorph actuator using electrophoretic deposition

In the present work, investigation of the functional property of piezoelectric graded monomorph actuator systems is presented. The functional graded actuators were fabricated by electrophoretic deposition (EPD) using pure PZT and doped PZT materials. Actuators developed have shown gradual gradient variation in microstructure. It is noted that the trend in microstructural gradient does not represent similar trend in piezoelectric property gradient. The displacement of microstructural graded and both piezoelectric and microstructural graded actuators were measured in the static condition. The latter was also measured under dynamic condition. The results show that the proper gradient distribution of the piezoelectric properties is important to improve the electromechanical performance of the actuator.     

晶体结构对压电陶瓷微位移驱动器特性的影响

对钙钛矿结构的ＰＺＴ－５和钨青铜结构的ＰＢＮＮ二种压电陶瓷制成的压电微位移器进行了电压－位移特性的比较和分析，发现我们所研制的ＰＢＮＮ压电微位移器具有线性好、回零好、等优点。     

Microdisplacement characteristics and microstructures of functionally graded piezoelectric ceramic actuator

In this work, we report a functionally gradient piezoelectric ceramic actuator with sandwiched structure prepared by the powder metallurgical method. The functional gradients of piezoelectric activity and dielectric activity vary inversely across the thickness of the actuator. Such functional gradients are obtained by interdiffusion reaction between a high piezoelectric composition [Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃/PZT] and a high dielectric composition (PbNi_1/3Nb_2/3O₃/PNN). The bending displacement at the free end of the PNN/PZT functionally graded piezoelectric ceramic actuator was approximately 20 m when 1.4-kV/mm electric field was applied. The grain morphology and compositional distribution across the actuator section and the microstructures of the sandwiched layer were investigated by scanned electron microscopy equipped with energy-dispersive spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and selected area electron diffraction patterns, respectively.     

DEPP functionally graded piezoceramics via micro-fabrication by co-extrusion

This paper introduces the Dual Electro/Piezo Property (DEPP) gradient technique via Micro-Fabrication through Co-eXtrusion (MFCX) which pairs a high displacement lead zirconate titanate (PZT) piezoceramic with a high permittivity barium titanate (BT) dielectric. By grading with this material combination spatially across an actuator, the electric field is concentrated in the more active region for improved efficiency, higher displacements, and complex motions. To aid in synthesis and analysis of any gradient profile, compositional maps are provided for key material properties (density, stiffness, permittivity, and piezoelectric coefficients). The DEPP technique was validated, independent of the MFCX process, by powder pressing a conventional bimodal gradient beam which demonstrated through experiments high displacement capabilities at lower driving potentials than comparable functionally graded piezoceramic actuators. For more complex gradients, the MFCX process was adapted to the DEPP gradient technique and illustrated by the fabrication of a linearly graded prototype whose monolithic nature and gradual material variation significantly reduces internal stresses, improves reliability, and extends service lifetime.     

Effect of electric cyclic loading on fatigue cracking of a bending piezoelectric hybrid composite actuator

Fatigue damage development in bending piezoelectric hybrid composite actuators with different lay-up configurations under electrical loading cycles is addressed in this work with the aid of an acoustic emission (AE) technique. Electric cyclic fatigue tests have been performed up to 10⁷ cycles on the fabricated bending piezoelectric hybrid composite actuators. The applied electric loading range is from ?150 voltage to +150 voltage. To confirm the fatigue damage onset and its pathway, the source location and distributions of the AE behavior over the fatigue range are analyzed. In conclusion, electric cyclic loading leads to piezoelectric fatigue damage such as trans- and intergranular micro-damage and long path main cracking on the surface of the PZT ceramic layer, thereby degrading the displacement performance. However, this fatigue damage and cracking do not result in final failure of the bending piezoelectric hybrid composite actuator loaded up to 10⁷ cycles. In particular, investigation of the AE behavior and the linear AE source location reveals that the onset time of the fatigue damage varies considerably depending on the existence of a GFRP protecting bottom layer.     

Experimental study on control fins of a small flying vehicle using piezo-composite actuators

A camber morphing control fin design and an all-moving control fin design using piezo-composite unimorph actuators are presented in this paper. The control fin of a small flying object is usually actuated using a servo motor system with an electromagnetic motor. Much research has been conducted to solve the structural complexity of servo actuation systems to convert the rotation of a servo motor to a linear actuation motion. To simplify this structural complexity, several types of smart actuators have been developed, such as bimorph or unimorph actuators with piezoelectric material layers and shape memory alloy actuators. In this study, a camber morphing type control fin and an all-moving type control fin actuated using piezo-composite actuators are designed to evaluate their ability to simplify the structural complexity of the gear transmission and electromagnetic servo motor system or hydraulic actuator system. Within the skin of the control fin, a piezo-composite actuator is mounted and the other end inserted in a slot of the control fin. As the piezo-composite actuator is excited by an electric field, the pitch angle of the control fin is changed. Experimental testing for the pitch rotation angle of a control fin in a 450 V electric field showed the deflection angle of the camber morphing control fin was 1.4° and the rotational angle of the all-moving control fin was 5.4°, which is obtained from the rotation angle magnification linkage structural system.     

Magnetically and Electrically Responsive Soft Actuator Derived from Ferromagnetic Bimetallic Organic Framework

The advancement in smart devices and soft robotics necessitates the use of multiresponsive soft actuators with high actuation stroke and stable reversibility for their use in real-world applications. Here, this work reports a magnetically and electrically dual responsive soft actuator based on neodymium and iron bimetallic organic frameworks (NdFeMOFs@700). The ferromagnetic NdFeMOFs@700 exhibits a porous carbon structure with excellent magnetization saturation (166.96 emu g⁻¹) which allows its application to a dual functional material in both magnetoactive and electro-ionic actuations. The electro-ionic soft actuator, which is fabricated using NdFeMOFs@700 and PEDOT-PSS, demonstrates 4.5 times higher ionic charge storage capacity (68.21 mF cm⁻²) and has excellent cycle stability compared with the PEDOT-PSS based actuator. Under a low sinusoidal input voltage of 1 V, the dual-responsive actuator displays bending displacement of 15.46 mm and also generates deflection of 10 mm at 50 mT. Present results show that the ferromagnetic bimetallic organic frameworks can open a new way to make dual responsive soft actuators due to the hierarchically porous structures with its high redox activity, superior magnetic properties, and larger electrochemical capacitance. With the NdFeMOFs@700 based soft actuators, walking movement of a starfish robot is demonstrated by applying both the magnetic and electric fields.     

A comparison of buckling and postbuckling behavior of FGM plates with piezoelectric fiber reinforced composite actuators

Compressive postbuckling under thermal environments and thermal postbuckling due to a uniform temperature rise are presented for a simply supported, shear deformable functionally graded plate with piezoelectric fiber reinforced composite (PFRC) actuators. The material properties of functionally graded materials (FGMs) are assumed to be graded in the thickness direction according to a simple power law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents, and the material properties of both FGM and PFRC layers are assumed to be temperature-dependent. The governing equations are based on a higher order shear deformation plate theory that includes thermo-piezoelectric effects. The initial geometric imperfection of the plate is taken into account. A two step perturbation technique is employed to determine buckling loads (temperature) and postbuckling equilibrium paths. The numerical illustrations concern the compressive and thermal postbuckling behaviors of perfect and imperfect, geometrically mid-plane symmetric FGM plates with fully covered or embedded PFRC actuators under different sets of thermal and electric loading conditions. The results for monolithic piezoelectric actuator, which is a special case in the present study, are compared with those of PFRC actuators. The results reveal that, in the compressive buckling case, the applied voltage usually has a small effect on the postbuckling load–deflection curves of the plate with PFRC actuators, whereas in the thermal buckling case, the effect of applied voltage is more pronounced for the plate with PFRC actuators, compared to the results of the same plate with monolithic piezoelectric actuators.     

A multilayer inplane bending piezoelectric actuator for dual-stage head-positioning control system

A novel multilayer in-plane bending piezoelectric actuator, called a multilayer split-morph, was designed and fabricated by thick-film screen-printing technology for a dual-stage head-positioning actuator system in a hard disk drive. The design, operation and theoretical principles have been described. The electromechanical performance of the fabricated actuators has been evaluated. The actuation stroke of the actuator is in inverse proportion to the thickness of the piezoelectric layer. The highest displacement/voltage sensitivity of 0.154µmV^-1 is achieved in a trapezoidal multilayer split-morph with a thickness of 35 m in each piezoelectric layer. The corresponding fundamental resonance frequency of the sway mode is high at 47 kHz in the trapezoid actuator with dimensions of 10.14 mm length, 3.08 mm and 1.54 mm widths of the two parallel sides of the trapezoid. The multilayer split-morph was designed to integrate directly onto a modified suspension load beam. With the combined attractive performances indicated above, the batch fabricated multilayer split-morph can provide a low-cost but promising solution for achieving very high track densities in a hard disk drive by implementing a high performance dual-stage head-positioning actuator system.     

Deflection of wafers and cantilevers with Pt/LNO/PZT/LNO/Pt/Ti/SiO2 multilayered structure

The present paper describes a Pt/LNO/PZT/LNO/Pt/Ti/SiO₂ multilayers deposited on 4-inch Si wafers. We have evaluated the variation of the deflection of the Si wafers with deposition of each of the thin films. The deposition of the multilayers has resulted in downward deflection (center is higher than edge) of the Si wafers. The multilayers have been also deposited onto SOI wafers and fabricated into piezoelectric micro cantilevers through MEMS bulk micromachining. The micro cantilevers have shown the upward deflection. We have characterized the ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of the PZT thin films through electrical tests of the micro cantilevers. The dielectric constant, saturation polarization, remanent polarization and coercive field were measured to be 1050, 31.3 μC/cm², 9.1 μC/cm² and 21 kV/cm, respectively. The transverse piezoelectric constant, d₃₁, was measured to be − 110 pm/V from the DC response of the micro cantilevers.     

A Resistivity Gradient Piezoelectric FGM Actuator

To whom correspondence should be addressedE-mail: zymeng@guomai.sh.cn1. IntroductionDuring the last several years the application ofpiezoelectric materials as reliable micro scale positioner has undergone considerable research and development work[1-3]. The two most common typesof piezoelectric actuators are the multilayer ceramicactuator with internal electrodes and the cantileveredbimorph actuator. However these technologies havetheir limitations in regard to size, weight, maximum displacem…     

Improved finite element modeling of piezoelectric beam with edge debonded actuator for actuation authority and vibration behaviour

The main emphasis of the present work is to model a piezoelectric beam with edge debonded actuator by employing finite element method based layerwise shear deformation theory, to improve the accuracy with which the actuation authority and natural frequencies are computed. The surface-bonded piezoelectric actuators and the host beam are considered to rotate individually due to shear deformation, while they are assumed to undergo the same flexural deflection and slope. These modeling aspects have improved the accuracy of the computed results. Edge debonding of actuator is accounted in the model by modeling healthy and debonded regions of the beam individually and subsequently applying the displacement continuity conditions at the interfaces of different regions. The investigations are carried out to find the effect of different extents of edge debonding on the actuation authority and natural frequencies of the debonded piezoelectric beam. It is found from the numerical results that the behaviour of the beam with edge debonded actuator is affected considerably as regards to the actuation authority and marginally with respect to natural frequencies. Further it has been shown that, when an actuator is edge debonded it introduces the local modes besides displaying significant reduction in its actuation authority.     

基于光控压电混合驱动悬臂梁独立模态控制

本文提出利用镧改性锆钛酸铅（PLZT）的光电效应,将PLZT作为电动势源来驱动压电作动器,从而实现光控板壳结构的振动控制。基于光控压电等效电学模型建立了光控压电混合驱动的数学模型,并进行了实验验证。为了实现光控悬臂梁的独立模态控制,针对悬臂梁结构,设计了正交模态传感器/作动器表面电极形状函数。提出PLZT与压电作动器正/反接控制的激励策略,并结合速度反馈定光强控制的控制算法,利用Newmark-β法对不同光照强度下悬臂梁的动态响应进行了数值仿真分析。分析结果证明了本文所设计的模态传感器/作动器及针对光控压电混合驱动提出的控制策略的正确性。     

Shape control of smart composite plate with non-rectangular piezoelectric actuators

Quasi-static shape control of a smart structure may be achieved through optimizing the applied electric fields, loci, shapes and sizes of piezoelectric actuators attached to the structure. In this paper, a finite element analysis (FEA) software has been developed for analyzing static deformation of smart composite plate structures with non-rectangular shaped PZT patches as actuators. The mechanical deformation of the smart composite plate is modeled using a 3rd order plate theory, while the electric field is simulated based on a layer-wise theory. The finite element formulation is verified by comparing with experimentally measured deformation. Numerical results are obtained for the optimum values of the electric field in the PZT actuators to achieve the desired shape using the linear least square (LLS) method. The numerical results demonstrate the influence of the shapes of actuators.     

Thin-Film Piezoelectric Actuators of Nonuniform Thickness and Nonhomogeneous Material Properties for Modulating Actuation Stress

The effects of the thickness variation and the material property variation of thin-film piezoelectric actuators on the actuation shear stress when the actuators are attached to an elastic plate are studied. A system of 2D equations for the flexure and shear of an elastic plate with symmetric piezoelectric actuators on the plate surfaces is derived. The equations are reduced to the case of elementary flexure without shear as a special case. The effects of the actuator thickness variation and material property variation on the actuation stress are examined using the equations obtained. It is shown that the distribution of the actuation stress depends on the thickness and material property variations of the actuators, and that actuators with varying thickness or varying material properties can be used to make modal actuators for producing a particular deformation or exciting a particular vibration mode.     

基于不同压电材料作动机制的压电层厚度研究

研究了压电材料复合板的3种作动机制,弯曲作动机制、剪切作动机制、混合作动机制,针对粘贴在纤维板上不同厚度的压电作动层,具体分析了复合板的端部位移,研究结果对噪声和振动的主动控制中的模态控制和智能结构静态形状控制提供了一定的参考。     

Compact piezoelectric stacked actuators for high power applications

Small, hollow, multilayer actuators with a diameter of 3 mm were fabricated by the stacking method from piezoelectric hard lead zirconate titanate (PZT) ceramics. Langevin vibrators were also constructed with the hollow multilayer actuators. The performance capabilities of the actuator and Langevin vibrator samples were examined under high-power conditions. The high-power vibration level at a given sinusoidal drive voltage was significantly enhanced by using a multilayer structure under either a nonresonance or resonance condition. A maximum vibration velocity of 0.17 m/sec was obtained for the 9-layer actuator sample under nonresonance conditions. The vibration velocity was further improved with the Langevin vibrator driven at the resonance frequency. The temperature rise due to heat generation under high-power conditions was the immediate limitation on the maximum accessible vibration velocity for the stacked actuators.     

Nonlinear thermal bending response of FGM plates due to heat conduction

Nonlinear thermal bending analysis is presented for a simply supported, shear deformable functionally graded plate without or with piezoelectric actuators subjected to the combined action of thermal and electrical loads. Heat conduction and temperature-dependent material properties are both taken into account. The temperature field considered is assumed to be a uniform distribution over the plate surface and varied in the thickness direction and the electric field considered only has non-zero-valued component E_Z. The material properties of functionally graded materials (FGMs) are assumed to be graded in the thickness direction according to a simple power law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents, and the material properties of both FGM and piezoelectric layers are assumed to be temperature-dependent. The governing equations of an FGM plate are based on a higher order shear deformation plate theory that includes thermo-piezoelectric effects. A two step perturbation technique is employed to determine the thermal load–deflection and thermal load–bending moment curves. The numerical illustrations concern nonlinear bending response of FGM plates without or with surface bonded piezoelectric actuators due to heat conduction and under different sets of electric loading conditions. The results reveal that for the case of heat conduction the nonlinear thermal bending responses are quite different to those of FGM plates subjected to transverse mechanical loads, and the temperature-dependency of FGMs could not be neglected in the thermal bending analysis.     

Numerical modelling of piezoelectric actuators exposed to hydrogen

Modern fuel injectors have been developed based on piezoelectric stack actuators. Performance and durability of actuators in a hydrogen environment are important considerations in the development of hydrogen injectors. 2D plane stress and 3D models for analysis of coupled diffusion and thermo-electromechanical response of actuators are presented. Chemical potential, electric field and temperature gradients are taken as driving forces for hydrogen transport. The explicit Euler finite difference method is used to solve the nonlinear diffusion governing equation. The finite element method is used for time-dependent analysis of fully coupled mechanical, electric and thermal fields. The diffusion process and thermo-electromechanical deformations are coupled through the dependence of piezoelectric properties on hydrogen concentration. Experimental results for the piezoelectric coefficient d ₃₃ of PZT ceramics exposed to different hydrogen concentrations are used. A comparison of a fully coupled 2D model with 2D and 3D models with reduced coupling is made to examine the significance of coupling and computational efficiency. Selected numerical results are presented for time histories of hydrogen concentration, temperature and stroke of an idealized actuator unit cell to obtain a preliminary understanding of the performance of actuators exposed to hydrogen.