Empirical analysis of piezoelectric stacks composed of plates with different parameters and excited with different frequencies

Abstract

Piezoelectric materials offer an ability to exchange energy between electrical and mechanical systems with fair ease, by using the simple and inverse piezoelectric effect. Piezoelectric transceivers, sensors, microphones, actuators, or active acoustic noise cancellation devices are some of many applications for piezoelectric materials. Due to the natural ability of the material to convert electricity and mechanical strain, solutions based on piezoelectric materials are often compact and allow applications on micro scales. One of the forms of piezoelectric actuation involves the use of piezoelectric stacks. The stack is composed of multiple piezoelectric plates layered by thin dielectric sheets, with electrodes attached along the sides. The main aim of piezoelectric stacks is the increase in maximum displacement by multiplying the number of piezoelectric plates that make up the stack. Stacks are composed of plates with the same material properties and the same dimensions. This study aims to investigate the idea of composing piezoelectric stacks of plates that have separate control circuits inducing different carrier frequencies or plates with differing properties and dimensions, in search for new applications for piezoelectric stacks. The main point of interest is the investigation of the ability to use piezoelectric stacks to generate complex vibration spectrums composed of multiple frequencies, resulting from the use of different piezoelectric plates in the stack or different carrier frequencies that stimulate each plate. To achieve this, a stack composed of two piezoelectric plates, each controlled by its own circuit, will be measured by a laser vibrometer, to check the complexity of the output vibration pattern.