Electromechanical Interaction Behaviors of Piezoelectric Sensor and Actuator on Elastic Substrate

In this article, the model and the algorithm developed in our previous work are used to investigate the thickness effect and the length effect of the piezoelectric patch and the influence of the substrate material properties on the responses of the piezoelectric-elastic structure. For an actuator-substrate structure, a thicker piezoelectric patch may be preferable in decreasing the stress concentration. Longer the piezoelectric patch, lower the interfacial normal stress. The interfacial stresses will go up with the increase of the stiffness of the host materials. For a sensor system, the strain transfer from substrate to sensor will decrease with the increase of the thickness of the piezoelectric sensor patch. The output voltage of the piezoelectric sensor rises with the increase of both the thickness and the length. A harder host material can make higher output voltage under the same strain.