Performance evaluation of lightweight piezo-composite actuators

This paper is concerned with the performance evaluation and comparison for several kinds of lightweight piezo-composite actuator (LIPCA) device system. LIPCA device system is composed of a piezoelectric ceramic wafer layer and fiber reinforced light composite layers, typically a PZT ceramic layer is sandwiched by a top fiber layer with low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and base layers with high CTE. To investigate the effect of lay-up structure of the LIPCA on the actuating performance, five kinds of actuator with different lay-up stacking sequence have been designed, manufactured, and tested. The performance of each actuator was evaluated using an actuator test system consisted of an actuator supporting jig, a high voltage actuating power supplier, and a non-contact laser measuring system. From the comparison of the performance of the LIPCA prototypes, it was found that the actuator with higher coefficient of unimorph actuator can generate larger actuating displacement.