Microaccelerometers using piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate (PZT) thin films have attracted much interest due to their simple structure and potentially high sensitivity. In this paper, we present a theoretical model for a microaccelerometer with four suspended flexural PZT-on-silicon beams and a central proof mass configuration. The model takes into account the effect of device geometry and...

Magnetic plucking applies the strategy of frequency up-conversion in inertial energy harvesting when the energy source, such as human motion, provides excitations with very low and irregular frequencies. In a typical implementation, a slower moving inertial mass magnetically plucks a piezoelectric cantilever beam which converts mechanical energy to electrical energy at a higher frequency. We ca...

We consider a controllability problem for a beam, clamped at one boundary and free at the other boundary, with an attached piezoelectric actuator. By Hilbert Uniqueness Method (HUM) and new results on diophantine approximations, we prove that the space of exactly initial controllable data depends on the location of the actuator. We also illustrate these results with numerical simulations. Mathe...

We propose a new 1–3 piezoelectric composite comprised of armchair single-walled carbon nanotubes imbedded in a piezoceramic matrix which we call a NRPEC (nanotube reinforced 1–3 piezoelectric composite). Values of effective piezoelectric and elastic moduli of the NRPEC determined through a micromechanical analysis are found to be significantly higher than those of the 1–3 piezoelectric composi...

The study of the applications of piezoelectric materials in the active vibration control of flexible structures has been ongoing for more than a decade. Based on the Linear Quadratic Gauss (LQG) optimal control method, the paper introduces an effective procedure to suppress the vibration of flexible structures with the sensors/actuators are symmetrically collocated on both sides of the same pos...

The plane-wave-expansion (PWE) approach dedicated to the simulation of periodic devices has been extended to 1-3 connectivity piezoelectric composite structures. The case of simple but actual piezoelectric composite structures is addressed, taking piezoelectricity, acoustic losses, and electrical excitation conditions rigorously into account. The material distribution is represented by using a ...

A model based fault detection filter is developed for structural health monitoring of a simply supported beam. The structural damage represented in the plant model is decomposed and is shown to reduce to a fault direction vector maintaining a fixed direction. According to detection filter theory, this fault detection vector under certain circumstances can be uniquely detected and identified thr...

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...

The piezoelectric effect of biological piezoelectric materials promotes bone growth. However, the material should be subjected to stress before it can produce an electric charge that promotes bone repair and reconstruction conducive to fracture healing. A novel method for in vitro experimentation of biological piezoelectric materials with physiological load is presented. A dynamic loading devic...