Investigation of temperature sensitivity of actuation performance for piezoelectric fiber composites

Abstract Piezoelectric fiber composites (PFCs) suffer an extremely wide range of temperatures when used in various aerospace structures where temperature effects on the mechanical properties of PFCs are important. In this paper, the actuation performances of PFCs were studied when they were exposed to environmental temperatures from −15 °C to 80 °C. The results showed that the actuation performance of PFCs was greatly dependent on the environmental temperature. The free strain values and the calculated piezoelectric coefficients d 33 and d 31 were initially enhanced with the increase of temperature due to the restricted movement of epoxy molecule in the glassy state. The glass transition temperature range of the composite was broadened due to a large number of small pores on the surface of the Pb(Zr,Ti)O 3 (PZT) fibers, when the epoxy molecules inside the pores had different transition behaviors compared with those outside the pores. The actuation performance including free strain performance and actuation capability, as well as the piezoelectric coefficients d 33 and d 31 decreased as the temperature increased above room temperature, since the deformation of epoxy molecules in the viscoelastic state was irreversible.