Abstract. This paper investigates the shear horizontal surface acoustic wave (SH-SAWs) propagating in layered piezomagnetic/piezoelectric structures covered a microbeam array, which involves a thin piezomagnetic layer bonded perfectly to an unbounded piezoelectric substrate. The beams are modeled by the Euler-Bernoulli theories when they are bending during the piezomagnetic/piezoelectric structures in shear motion. The explicit formulations of SH-SAWs dispersion relations in such layered structure with consideration of magnetoelectrically open and shorted cases are derived. The effects of the microbeam array on the phase velocity are analyzed. The numerical results are presented and discussed. From the results, we can find that the effects of microbeams on the properties of the SH-SAWs are remarkable. The phase velocity decrease with the non-dimensional wave number and increase with the number of microbeams and the thickness of piezomagnetic layer. The analytical method and the results in the paper could be useful to the design of the chemical sensors of magnetoelectric materials.
IntroductionIt is well known that the composite materials consisting of piezoelectric (PE) and piezomagnetic (PM) have the ability to convert energy between magnetic and electric fields which is not present in single-phase piezoelectric or piezomagnetic materials [1][2]. For this reason, PM-PE composites are potential candidates for magnetic sensors, transducers and microwave devices, e.g. delay lines, magnetic field probes, damage detectors, medical ultrasonic imaging, and resonators, etc. These applications are done with wave propagations and vibrations in PM-PE composites, and so their dynamic behavior is the first concern in design as well as in performance. A number of investigations have been reported about the wave propagation problems in such composites [3][4].We all known a large number micro-or nano-scale beam arrays have been made by using different techniques due to the extensive effort on micro-and nano-technologies [5][6]. These new structures have great potentials for new devices such as efficient microneedles, dynamic tuning of surface wetting, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) actuators and resonators, etc. There are strong needs to study the effects of microbeams on vibrations of structures or wave propagation in structures due to the design of resonators, sensors and actuators. Li et al discussed the collective buckling of nonuniform nanobeams interacting through an elastic substrate [7]. Lin et al considered the effects of surface deformation on the collective buckling of an array of rigid beams on an elastic substrate [8]. Liu et al investigated shear vibration of a rotated Y-cut quartz crystal plate carrying an array of microbeams with their bottoms fixed to the top surface of the plate [9]. From the paper, we can find that the plate was modeled by the theory of anisotropic elasticity and the beams were modeled by the Euler-Bernoulli theory for beam bending, and a frequency equation that determines the resonan...