Abstract
Reliable design of lead zirconate titanate (PZT) piezo stack actuators demands that several issues, including electromechanical coupling and ceramic strength-size scaling, be scrutinized. This study addresses those through the use of ball-on-ring (BoR) biaxial flexure strength tests of a PZT piezoelectric material that is concurrently subjected to an electric field. The Weibull strength distributions and fracture surfaces were examined. The mechanical failures were further analyzed in terms of internal stress, energy release rate, and domain-switching toughening. Both the sign and the magnitude of an electric field had a significant effect on the strength of poled PZT within the tested range. A surface flaw type with an average depth of around 18 μm was identified to be the strength limiter and responsible for the failure of the tested PZT under both mechanical and electromechanical loadings. With a value of 0.74 MPa·m1/2 in the absence of electric field, the fracture toughness of the poled PZT was afected by an applied electric field just as the strength was affected. These results and observations have the potential to serve probabilistic reliability analysis and design optimization of multilayer PZT piezo actuators.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 2559-2570 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control |
Volume | 55 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 2008 |
Funding
manuscript received december 7, 2007; accepted June 19, 2008. This research was sponsored by the U.s. department of Energy (doE), office of Freedomcar and Vehicle Technologies, as a part of the Heavy Vehicle Propulsion system materials Program, under contract dE-ac05-00or22725 with UT-battelle, llc. The work was supported in part by an appointment to the oak ridge national laboratory Postdoctoral research associates Program, sponsored by the U.s. doE and administered by the oak ridge Institute for science and Education.
Funders | Funder number |
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Institute for science and Education | |
U.S. Department of Energy |