Soft-materials elastic and shear moduli measurement using piezoelectric cantilevers

Abstract

We have developed a soft-material elastic modulus and shear modulus sensor using piezoelectric cantilevers. A piezoelectric cantilever is consisted of a highly piezoelectric layer, e.g., lead–zirconate–titanate bonded to a nonpiezoelectric layer, e.g., stainless steel. Applying an electric field in the thickness direction causes a piezoelectric cantilever to bend, generating an axial displacement or force. When a piezoelectric cantilever is in contact with an object, this electric field-generated axial displacement is reduced due to the resistance by the object. With a proper design of the piezoelectric cantilever’s geometry, its axial displacements with and without contacting the object could be accurately measured. From these measurements the elastic modulus of the object can be deduced. In this study, we tailored the piezoelectric cantilevers for measuring the elastic and shear moduli of tissue-like soft materials with forces in the submilli Newton to milliNewton range. Elastic moduli and shear moduli of soft materials were measured using piezoelectric cantilevers with a straight tip and an L-shaped tip, respectively. Using gelatin and commercial rubber material as model soft tissues, we showed that a piezoelectric cantilever 1.5–2cm long could measure the elastic modulus and the shear modulus of a small soft material sample (1–3mm wide) in the small strain range (<1%). For samples 5mm high, the resultant compressive (shear) strains were less than 0.5% (1%). The measurements were validated by (1) comparing the measured Young’s modulus of the commercial rubber sample with its known value and (2) by measuring both the Young’s modulus and shear modulus on the samples and confirming the thus deduced Poisson’s ratios with the separately measured Poisson’s ratios.