Dynamic behavior of resonant piezoelectric cantilever as liquid level detection sensor

Resonant Piezoelectric-excited Millimeter-sized Cantilevers (PEMC), has attracted many researchers’ interest in the applications such as liquid level and density sensing. As in these applications, the PEMC are partially immersed in liquid, an appropriate analytical model is needed to predict the dynamic behavior of these devices. In this work, a PEMC has been fabricated for liquid level sensing. An analytical model based on Euler–Bernoulli beam theory and energy method is developed and applied to evaluate the performance of this device with respect to different tip immersion depth. To validate the proposed model, the theoretical results are compared with the experimental results for the tip immersion depth from 5 to 15?mm in water. The simulation results are in almost good agreement with experimental data. Using the proposed model, the two key parameters of sensor performance: sensitivity and working range have been examined for different mode shapes of PEMC vibration.