Fabrication and high durability of functionally graded piezoelectric bending actuators

Abstract

A new type of functionally graded (FG) piezoelectric bending actuator was proposed by the present authors in their former study and the advantage of the new actuator over the traditional bimorph and unimorph actuators in internal stress distribution was illustrated by simulation results. In this study, the fabrication process of FG piezoelectric bending actuators is developed and the characteristics of the fabricated actuators are investigated. The material compositions with different dielectric and piezoelectric constants were selected from the Pb(Ni 1/3 Nb 2/3 )O 3 -PbZrO 3 -PbTiO 3 family and used as the four layers in the new FG piezoelectric actuator. The piezoelectric constant and dielectric constant were graded oppositely in the thickness direction. The durability of the fabricated FG piezoelectric actuators was measured in a vibration test and compared with that of the traditional bimorph actuator to evaluate the improvement of performance. The results show that the durability of the FG piezoelectric actuators is much higher than that of the bimorph actuator.

Static Analysis of Functionally Graded Piezoelectric Beams under Thermo-Electro-Mechanical Loads

“…Since these actuators are manufactured by bonding one or two piezoelectric layers to a metal shim layer, the bonding interface has low strength. On the other hand, large stress discontinuity and concentration are initiated in the bonding interface due to the difference of material properties between the shim and piezoelectric layer [2]. To solve this problem, a novel class of actuators were developed in 1995 in which one or more layers were made from FGPMs with thermo-electromechanical properties varying smoothly along the layer thickness [3].…”

High piezoelectric actuation response in graded Nd2O3 and ZrO2 doped BaTiO3 structures

“…Recently, functionally graded actuator systems have attracted much attention [14][15][16]. In this paper, fabrication of graded electromechanical actuators from Nd and Zr doped BT was explored.…”

Fabrication of 0.655Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-0.345PbTiO3 functionally graded piezoelectric actuator by tape-casting

“…These actuators are manufactured by bonding one or two piezoelectric layers to a metal shim layer, where the stress concentration and structural weakness at the bonding interface primarily cause the breakdown of the unimorph and bimorph actuators in cyclic actuation [8]. Qiu et al [9][10][11] proposed a new type of functionally graded (FG) piezoelectric actuator.…”

“…Due to the gradation of material properties, the layers will generate a graded distribution of in-plane strain when they are considered separately. Since all the layers are integrated in a single element, a bending deformation is generated with relatively small internal stress [11].…”