Design and development of a new class of piezoelectric actuators for force improvement

TLDR: In this article, a new class of piezoelectric bimorph actuators, called C-blocks, is described, which can produce approximately five times the force of the traditional straight cantilever beam bimomorph design with only a slight decrease in the deflection.

Abstract: Piezoelectric actuators are useful for smart structure applications because they are light weight, compact and fast compared to other types of actuators. The two most common configurations, bimorph and stack, have significant limitations on the available force and deflection, respectively, which can be produced. This paper describes a new class of piezoelectric bimorph actuators that supply larger force than the traditional straight cantilever beam bimorph design. These actuators, called C-blocks because of their half circle shape, can produce approximately five times the force of the traditional design with only a slight decrease in the deflection. In addition, they can be combined in series or in parallel like building blocks to form larger actuators that provide improved deflection and/or force capabilities. This paper presents a mathematical model that provides an approach to designing and predicting the force performance of a C-block architecture. This paper also summarizes a set of manufacturing techniques developed to fabricate C-block architectures from polymeric piezoelectric material Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVdF). These techniques were used to manufacture prototypes used in a Force-Voltage experiment that was performed to measure force performance. The results from these experiments confirm the mathematical model is accurate and the force performance of a C-block architecture is substantially increased in comparison to the force generated from a traditional straight beam bimorph.© (1995) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.