THE INFLUENCE OF FERROELASTIC HYSTERESIS ON MECHANICALLY EXCITED PZT CANTILEVER BEAMS

A theoretical model for mechanically excited PZT cantilevers including the effect of ferroelastic hysteresis has been developed and experimentally verified. The nonlinear effect of the ferroeleastic hysteresis is of second order in the excitation amplitude and therefore typically much stronger than the commonly considered third-order nonlinearities that arise from a Taylor expansion of the Gibbs free energy. It is shown that the second order nonlinearities lead to a resonance frequency that decreases linearly and a mechanical damping that increases linearly with the excitation amplitude. Both features are clearly seen in the experiments.