Study on the stability and reliability performance of piezoelectric ceramics under vibration load

Abstract

Piezoelectric energy harvester (PEH) needs to be in service for a long period under vibration loads of different frequencies, and the piezoelectric and dielectric parameters of piezoelectric materials will fluctuate during vibration. In this study, an experimental setup was designed for testing the change of piezoelectric coefficient \({d}_{33}\) and relative permittivity \({\varepsilon }_{r}\) before and after the vibration of piezoelectric materials under different frequencies (10 Hz, 100 Hz, 1000 Hz). Three common lead zirconate titanate (PZT) materials (PZT-4, PZT-5H, PZT-8) were selected for testing. The results showed that the piezoelectric coefficient \({d}_{33}\) and relative permittivity \({\varepsilon }_{r}\) of the three types of PZT materials fluctuated at three different moments (before the vibration, after the vibration, and 24 h after the vibration), but PZT-5H was more obvious than the other two. Furthermore, we designed an experimental setup to observe the crack propagation of three types of piezoelectric materials before and after vibration. The results showed that the crack propagation is about 1–5 \(\mu m\) at 1000 Hz vibration frequency, while it is not obvious at the other two frequencies (10 Hz, 100 Hz). The above experimental results provide references for the design of piezoelectric devices.