Analytical development of single crystal Macro Fiber Composite actuators for active twist rotor blades

A Macro Fiber Composite (MFC) is a piezoelectric fiber composite which has an interdigitated electrode, rectangular cross-section and unidirectional polycrystalline piezoceramic (PZT) fibers embedded in the polymer matrix. A MFC actuator has much higher actuation performance and flexibility than a monolithic piezoceramic actuator. Moreover, the single crystal piezoelectric material exhibits much higher induced strain levels, energy density and coupling than those of polycrystalline piezoceramic materials. Thus, the performance of an MFC can be improved by using single crystal piezoelectric fiber instead of polycrystalline piezoceramic fiber. This study investigates the analytical modeling, material properties and actuation performance of an MFC using single crystal piezoelectric material (single crystal MFC). For single crystal MFC, the mechanical properties are calculated by the classical lamination theory, and the uniform fields model (UFM) is adopted to predict piezoelectric strain constants. In addition, the actuation performance of the single crystal MFC with the active twist rotor blade is studied. The material properties and actuation performance of single crystal MFC are compared with those of standard MFC.