Abstract. Fatigue damage behavior under repeated electric loading was investigated on two kinds of PZT ceramics with discontinuous electrodes. Intergranular cracking was observed at the electrode edge in soft PZT under electric fields greater than ±400 V/mm. However, under the same loading conditions, no damage was observed in hard PZT. When cracking occurred, permittivity of specimens decreased with the number of cycles corresponding to the amount of mechanical damage. FEM analyses of the electroelastic field of the specimens showed that cracking due to cyclic electric loading was related to 180˚ domain switching caused by concentrated electroelastic field.

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Abstract. Fatigue damage behavior under repeated electric loading was investigated on two kinds of PZT ceramics with discontinuous electrodes. Intergranular cracking was observed at the electrode edge in soft PZT under electric fields greater than ±400 V/mm. However, under the same loading conditions, no damage was observed in hard PZT. When cracking occurred, permittivity of specimens decreased with the number of cycles corresponding to the amount of mechanical damage. FEM analyses of the electroelastic field of the specimens showed that cracking due to cyclic electric loading was related to 180˚ domain switching caused by concentrated electroelastic field.