AN ARTICLE by Belušič and Zupančič (1) described the construction of a finger pulse sensor using a singing greeting card beeper. We felt that this beeper made of piezoelectric material could be easily modified to function as a respiratory belt transducer to monitor respiratory movements. Commercially available respiratory belt transducers, such as Pneumotrace (http:// www.adinstruments.com/prod...

Passive vibration shunt control using piezoelectric materials and an electrical network can remove vibration energy from structures. However, the vibration shunt control efficiency relies on the optimization of the vibration energy transfer between a structure and a Lead-Zirconate-Titanate piezoelectric ceramic material. We present an analytical study of a parallel resistor-inductor piezoelectr...

The most difficult task in the characterization of complete set material properties for piezoelectric materials is self-consistency. Because there are many independent elastic, dielectric, and piezoelectric constants, several samples are needed to obtain the full set constants. Property variation from sample to sample often makes the obtained data set lack of self-consistency. Here, we present ...

Nonlinear effects in the coupling of polarization with elastic strain have been predicted to occur in ferroelectric materials subjected to high electric fields. Such predictions are tested here for a PbZr0.2Ti0.8O3 ferroelectric thin film at electric fields in the range of several hundred MV/m and strains reaching up to 2.7%. The piezoelectric strain exceeds predictions based on constant piezoe...

The effect of the polymeric reticulation on the thermal stability of the piezoelectricity of a micro-structured PDMS piezo-electret was investigated. This new family of flexible piezoelectric materials with very low Young’s modulus is used for wearable sensors and energy harvester devices. The best thermal stability was obtained for the piezo-electret material made from the ratio 1:10 between t...

Abstract—Propagation of electro-elastic waves in a piezoelectric waveguide with finite stacks and a defect layer is studied using a modified transfer matrix method. The dispersion equation for a periodic structure consisting of unit cells made up from two piezoelectric materials with metallized interfaces is obtained. An analytical expression, for the transmission coefficient for a waveguide wi...

An approach of Green’s function is adopted to solve the inhomogeneous linear differential equations representing wave equations in piezo-composite materials. In particular, transference of horizontally polarised shear (SH) waves is considered in bedded structure comprising of porous-piezo electric layer lying over a heterogeneous half-space. Propagation of SH-waves is considered to be influence...

This paper presents a new approach for the use of piezoelectric materials, PVDF and PZT, for vibration attenuation of a planar parallel manipulator. Since lightweight linkages of parallel manipulators deform under high acceleration/deceleration, such motion induced vibration would have to be damped quickly to reduce settling time of the platform position. An active damping controller is develop...

Energy harvesting from ubiquitous ambient vibrations is attractive for autonomous small-power applications and thus considerable research is focused on piezoelectric materials as they permit direct inter-conversion of mechanical and electrical energy. Nanogenerators (NGs) based on piezoelectric nanowires are particularly attractive due to their sensitivity to small-scale vibrations and may poss...