Orthotropic piezoelectric composite materials actuator and its preliminary application

In this paper, the laminated piezoelectric composite materials with orthotropic properties, the structures, performances of orthotropic piezoelectric actuation elements are studied. Orthotropic piezoelectric composite materials present remarkable differences in two primary directions perpendicular to each other. As actuation chips, the laminated orthotropic piezoelectric composite materials present opposite deformation tendencies in two primary directions, which conforms to the deformation law of common engineering materials. This property presents merit in the control of structure shape and displacement and as the actuation element around self-adaptive structures compared with the common piezoelectric actuation materials. It follows from the practical test that the longitudinal induced strain of OPCM actuation element is 1.28 times of PZT actuation element, and 1.30 times of the traverse induced strain, together with opposite directions. Experimental researches are carried out respectively for bending and torsion actuation of cantilevers by using 1-1 type OPCM and PZT actuation elements. The results show that the actuation efficacy of OPCM element is 1.68 times that of PZT. In torsion actuation experiment, the actuation efficacy of OPCM actuation element is 2.1 times that of PZT actuation element. The above-mentioned advantages of the laminated orthotropic piezoelectric composite materials make them play important rules in self-diagnosis and self-adaptive structures.