Elastic Response of a Piezoelectric Ceramic Plate with Two Penny-shaped Electrodes at the Opposite Surfaces Under an Electric Load

The electric and elastic behaviors of a piezoelectric actuator under an external electric input are analyzed. The actuator is composed of a piezoelectric ceramic plate with two penny-shaped thin electrodes at the opposite surfaces. The problem is solved by using the Hankel transform technique. By reducing the mixed boundary value problem to a Fredholm integral equation of the second kind, numerical results are presented for the mechanical response of the piezoelectric plate subjected to applied electric stimulus. The profiles of the elastic displacements and the distributions of the stresses for a PZT-5H plate are shown graphically. The results indicate that the vertical surface displacement arrives at a maximum at the electrode region, while the radial surface displacement arrives at a peak at the electrode edge. Moreover, elastic stresses arrive at their peaks near the electrode edge within the piezoelectric plate.