Deflection of coupled elasticity–electrostatic bimorph PVDF material: theoretical, FEM and experimental verification

Piezoelectric materials have wide applications in the field of mechanical, aerospace and civil engineering because of its voltage dependent actuation. Piezoelectric material goes through voltage generation whenever deflection is induced in it and vice versa. Piezoelectric bimorph beam has been widely used for sensing and actuating. In the actuation mode, an electric field is applied across the beam thickness, one layer contracts while the other expands. This results in the bending of the entire structure and tip deflection. In the sensing mode, the bimorph is used to measure an external load by monitoring the piezoelectric induced electrode voltages. In this research work, a 2D bimorph piezoelectric actuator model having two layers made of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) material was developed to examine the inverse piezoelectric effect. Finite element analysis (FEA) was carried out on specially designed actuator model by using MATLAB Partial Differential Equation (PDE) ToolboxTM. Theoretical analysis has been carried out to measure the tip deflection under applied electric field. The laboratory test was performed to investigate the deformation behavior of piezoelectric actuator. It is observed that, more the electric field applied, more the material would be deformed in a particular direction. The experimental results are in good agreement with numerical results.