LARGE STROKE HIGH FIDELITY PIEZOELECTRIC SINGLE CRYSTAL ACTUATOR

Abstract

In this work, a novel piezoelectric actuator design named “stake actuator” is presented and analysed. This unique design uses piezoelectric single crystals as the active material. The main advantage of such design, comparing to state-of-the-art multilayer stack actuator, is the high stroke and low strain-electric field hysteresis. The external working conditions (temperature, preload and applied voltage) of the stake actuator are studied in details to avoid phase transformation of the material which leads to huge hysteresis. The phase transformation curve is plotted and can be used as a guideline in the actual application. Also, a novel external mechanical amplification mechanism named HBSC is introduced and tested. Such a mechanism can double the stroke and blocking force of the individual actuator at the same time. Computational simulation is used to prove that HBSC only has small deformation under large load (150kg) and can be neglected.