Piezoelectric Instrumentation

Piezoelectric Instrumentation

The Piezo-ceramic used as the actuator in this paper is Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT). The actuator is designed in a U-shape, as shown in Figure 4.13. The material is constructed in a sandwich fashion with layers of PZT material. This structure and the assembly in the U-shape arrangement provide maximum forward deflection of 4 mm and maximum reverse deflection 1.5 mm.

The full specification of the material used is provided in Table 4.1.

Electrical performance
Nominal voltage	325 Vdc
Max. forward voltage	500Vdc
Max. reverse voltage	75 Vdc
Physical performance
Nominal deflection per volt	10-6 m.
Max. forward deflection	4 mm.
Max. reverse deflection	1.5 mm.
Time to deflect (min)	1.25 ms
Blocking force	0.2 N
Beam release force (max)	2.5 N
Physical data
Ceramic	Lead, Titanium, trace
Substrate	Alloy 42 (Ni,Fe,Si,Mn)

Table 4.1 Characteristics of piezoelectric

A Laser Triangulation Sensor was used to measure the deflection of the piezoelectric. The sensor has a 0.01µm resolution. The power supply for piezoelectric was used dual step up transformers transform from 230Vac to 360 Vdc via variable resistor. More than 200 data and 12 sets were recorded to study the relationship between supply voltage and deflection of the piezoelectric

Ronsek Ltd 

Piezoelectrics in Circuit Breakers