Modeling of the electromechanical performance of piezoelectric laminated microactuators

Piezoelectric microactuators may be considered as multilayer laminated composites consisting of alternating layers of piezoelectric and non-piezoelectric materials. A generalized analytical formulation of mechanical deformations as a function of applied electric field is derived for an arbitrary lay-up of such laminates. Based on the generalized theory developed, specific formulae for the electromechanical performance of two cantilever microactuator lay-up geometries. including a single piezo/elastic laminate and a bimorph, are derived. In the modeling of the electromechanical performance of piezoelectric microactuators, the present model incorporates both d 211 and d 222 . Furthermore, the elastic properties of both the piezoelectric and the elastic materials have been considered. The developed model is evaluated based on a comparison with results from experiment.