Smart film actuators using biomass plastic

Abstract

This paper presents a novel smart film actuator based on the use of a biomass plastic as apiezoelectric film. Conventional polymeric smart sensors and actuators have been basedupon synthetic piezoelectric polymer films such as PVDF. Almost all synthetic polymersare made from nearly depleted oil resources. In addition combustion of their materialsreleases carbon dioxide, thereby contributing to global warming. Thus at least twoimportant sustainability principles are violated when employing synthetic polymers:avoiding depletable resources and avoiding ecosystem destruction. To overcomesuch problems, industrial plastic products made from synthetic polymers weredeveloped to replace oil-based plastics with biomass plastics. This paper appliesa biomass plastic with piezoelectricity such as poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA). As aresult, PLLA film becomes a distributed parameter actuator per se, hence anenvironmentally conscious smart film actuator is developed. Firstly, this paperoverviews the fundamental properties of piezoelectric synthetic polymers andbiopolymers. The concept of carbon neutrality using biopolymers is mentioned.Then a two-dimensional modal actuator for exciting a specific structural mode isproposed. Furthermore, a biomass plastic-based cantilever beam with the capability ofmodal actuation is developed, the validity of the proposed smart film actuatorbased upon a biomass plastic being analytically as well as experimentally verified.