Design and manufacture of a lightweight piezo-composite curved actuator

Abstract

In this paper we are concerned with the design, manufacture and performance test of a lightweight piezo-composite curved actuator (called LIPCA) using a top carbon fiber composite layer with near-zero coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), a middle PZT ceramic wafer, and a bottom glass/epoxy layer with a high CTE. The main point of the design for LIPCA is to replace the heavy metal layers of THUNDER TM by lightweight fiber reinforced plastic layers without losing the capabilities for generating high force and large displacement. It is possible to save up to about 40% of the weight if we replace the metallic backing material by the light fiber composite layer. We can also have design flexibility by selecting the fiber direction and the size of prepreg layers. In addition to the lightweight advantage and design flexibility, the proposed device can be manufactured without adhesive layers when we use an epoxy resin prepreg system. Glass/epoxy prepregs, a ceramic wafer with electrode surfaces, and a carbon prepreg were simply stacked and cured at an elevated temperature (177 • C) after following an autoclave bagging process. We found that the manufactured composite laminate device had a sufficient curvature after being detached from a flat mould. An analysis method using the classical lamination theory is presented to predict the curvature of LIPCA after curing at an elevated temperature. The predicted curvatures are in quite good agreement with the experimental values. In order to investigate the merits of LIPCA, performance tests of both LIPCA and THUNDER TM have been conducted under the same boundary conditions. From the experimental actuation tests, it was observed that the developed actuator could generate larger actuation displacement than THUNDER TM .

A geometrically non-linear piezoelectric solid shell element based on a mixed multi-field variational formulation

“…The layup of the LIPCA-C1 is presented in e.g. [44,45] and consists out of four layers: two Glass/Epoxy layers, one PZT Ceramic, and one Carbon/Epoxy layer. The stacked layers are vacuum bagged which results in an initial curvature.…”

Vibration suppression of a flexible robot manipulator with a lightweight piezo-composite actuator

“…Along with a lookup table control method, we implemented a lightweight piezo-composite actuator (LIPCA) to suppress the vibration of the flexible manipulator. This LIPCA, developed by the second and third authors of this paper, has been proven to have good actuation displacement and durability [15][16][17]. We applied the LIPCA to suppress the vibration of an aluminum beam, and our results confirm that the LIPCA performs better than a bare lead zirconium titanate (PZT) actuator [18,19].…”

Application of a LIPCA for the structural vibration suppression of an aluminum cantilever beam with a tip mass

“…: +82 2 444 7091 E-mail address:nsgoo@konkuk.ac.kr Kermani et al (2004), though this method may cause drawbacks such as critical breaks in the installation process, short circuits in the host material and low fatigue performance. Yoon et al (2002) developed a new actuator called a lightweight piezocomposite actuator (UPCA) that could alleviate such problems.…”