Piezoelectric d15 shear response-based torsion actuation mechanism: an experimental benchmark and its 3D finite element simulation

Abstract

An experimental benchmark is proposed for piezoelectric, direct-torsion actuation using mono-morph piezoceramic d15 shear patches. This is reached by designing and assembling an adaptive plate having two identical composite faces sandwiching a core made of connected six oppositely polarized (OP) piezoceramic d15 shear patches along the length. An electronic speckle pattern interferometry system was used to measure the static tip deflection of the adaptive sandwich composite plate that was mounted in a cantilever configuration and actuated in torsion by progressively applied voltages on the piezoceramic shear core electroded major surfaces. Then, the effective rate of twist was post-processed and proposed as an evaluation criterion for smart composites under piezoelectric torsion actuation. For verification of the experimental results, the proposed experimental benchmark was simulated using three-dimensional piezoelectric finite elements (FE) within ABAQUS® commercial software. The comparison of the obtained experimental and simulation results showed reasonable agreement, but the slight nonlinear experimental response was not confirmed by the linear FE analysis. The experimentally proved torsion actuation mechanism, produced by OP piezoceramic d15 shear patches, can be applied actively to prevent torsion in many applications, such as in wind turbines, helicopter blades, robot arms, flexible space structures, etc.