Indentation response of piezoelectric films under frictional contact

Piezoelectric materials are available in a variety of shapes and forms in smart systems. One of the most common shapes for sensor or actuator applications is the film form. To gain a better understanding of the indentation behavior of these systems, this work analyzes piezoelectric films under different 3D frictional contact boundary conditions. For this purpose, the boundary element formulation presented by authors in Rodríguez-Tembleque, Buroni, and Sáez (2015) is used for modeling piezoelectric finitely thick and thin films under orthotropic frictional indentation conditions, including tangential loads. The formulation has been applied to analyze the influence of friction and tangential loads on the electromechanical response of finitely thick piezoelectric films, ranging from a piezoelectric half space configuration, where the contact radius is much smaller than the thickness of the film, to a thin film configuration. Results reveal that these variables have to be considered to study the indentation response of these advanced systems. In other case, we could over- or underestimate the piezoelectric response and its distribution over the contact zone.