Experimental Validation of a Piezoceramic Annular Plate Theoretical Model

The vibrational behavior of a piezoceramic ring is quite different from that of a solid disk with the same radius and thickness and therefore an “ad hoc” model is desirable. Berlincourt et al. proposed a simple lumped mode model1 which is only valid when the inner radius approaches the outer one. More recently, Brissaud developed a three-dimensional stress free model with the purpose of characterizing piezoceramic materials2. In recent works we described a matrix model of the radial mode of a thin piezoceramic ring capable to take the interaction of the lateral surfaces with the surrounding medium into account3,4. The ring is modelled as a three port system with two mechanical and one electrical ports. In this work we measured the frequency spectrum and the lateral displacement of the ring and we compared with the computed results finding a good agreement. Further we compared the measured effective coupling factor k eff with the computed one finding, also in this case, a good agreement and therefore validating the present model.