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A comparative study of piezoelectric unimorph and multilayer actuators as stiffness sensors via contact resonance

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Abstract

Piezoelectric bar-shaped resonators were proposed to act as hardness sensors in the 1960s and stiffness sensors in the 1990s based on the contact impedance method. In this work, we point out that both multilayer and unimorph (or bimorph) piezoelectric actuators could act as stiffness/modulus sensors based on the principle of mechanical contact resonance. First, the practical design and the performance of a piezoelectric unimorph actuator–based stiffness sensor were presented. Then the working principle of piezoelectric multilayer actuator–based stiffness sensors was given and verified by numerical investigation. It was found that for these two types of resonance-based sensors, the shift of the resonance frequency due to contact is always positive, which is different from that of the contact impedance method. Further comparative sensitivity study indicated that the unimorph actuator–based stiffness sensor is very suitable for measurement on soft materials, whereas the multilayer actuator–based sensor is more suitable for hard materials.

Graphical Abstract

Both multilayer (or bar-shaped) and unimorph (bimorph) piezoelectric actuators can be used as stiffness/modulus sensors based on the mechanical contact resonance.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 11090331). Support from the Chinese National Programs for Scientific Instruments Research and Development (Grant 2012YQ03007502) is also acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory for Turbulence and Complex System, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Ji Fu & Fa-Xin Li

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  1. Ji Fu
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  2. Fa-Xin Li
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Correspondence to Fa-Xin Li.

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Fu, J., Li, FX. A comparative study of piezoelectric unimorph and multilayer actuators as stiffness sensors via contact resonance. Acta Mech. Sin. 32, 633–639 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10409-015-0540-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10409-015-0540-4

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