High Power Piezoelectric Characterization for Piezoelectric Transformer Development

The major goal was to develop characterization techniques to identify and define guidelines to manufacture high power density actuators. We particularly aim at improving the strengths of piezoelectric transformers, namely the high efficiency, ease of manufacturing, low electromagnetic noise, and high power to weight ratio resulting in an adaptor application by identifying material limitations, geometrical limitations and offer guidelines to counter drawbacks limiting the power density.;There are 3 losses present in piezoelectrics. Namely dielectric, elastic and piezoelectric losses. These losses can be calculated using mechanical quality factors of the resonating piezoelectric actuator. But in order to calculate all three losses, the mechanical quality factor for resonance and anti resonance need to be measured. Although the mechanical quality factor for resonance is conventionally measured, measurements in antiresonance have been ignored. Since there was no unique measurement technique to address antiresonance and resonance Q in one single sweep, in this study constant vibration velocity method was developed. During the constant vibration velocity measurement, the input electrical energy is monitored and significant differences between resonance and antiresonance drives are observed. For the same output work (identical vibration velocity) significant differences in the losses were observed. Thermographic images have shown increasing temperature differences for resonance and antiresonance nodal point temperatures, with higher vibration velocities. The theoretical evaluation identified the difference observed in the mechanical quality factors at resonance and antiresonance to stem from the piezoelectric loss. In order to investigate losses in the absence of thermal effects a transient characterization technique was adopted. The burst technique, originally developed for characterization of the mechanical quality factor at resonance, has been modified with a switch circuit to leave the resonator in an open circuit condition. The newly introduced open circuits burst have resulted in antiresonance quality factor measurements along with resonance quality factors in a "non-heating" sample. In this technique too, resonance and antiresonance losses showed significant difference. Resonance burst mode characterizations at elevated ambient temperatures have shown that the lower vibration velocity mechanical quality factors appear to be more sensitive to the ambient temperature.;Design criteria's to produce the most power dense structure were investigated. Common device shapes were investigated to see which one does enhance the power density of the piezoelectric device. Disk shaped piezoelectric actuators have proven to have lower matching impedances and higher, farther persisting mechanical quality factors with respect to vibration velocities. In order to achieve identical power level, plate shaped samples will have been to strain ~3.5 times more than disk shaped samples. Thus the most power dense structure has been concluded to be a disk shape ~1W/cm3 Once the actuators shape was fixed, further design on structure were conducted with (c)ATILA finite element method. For the transformer application, the design considered following key factors; 1-Controlling the output impedance by optimizing number of layers and layer thicknesses of the multilayer and 2- Evaluation of various electrodes and their affect on high power performance was evaluated. As the thickness of active layers decreased, the number of electrode layers increases. This increase in the metal to piezoelectric ratio and the relative increase in the electrode resistance under high current loads, both will have to be accounted for. Thus; with the piezoelectric composition and the device structure optimized, the research input electrical power.;Once the actuators shape was fixed, further design on structure were conducted with (c)ATILA finite element method. For the transformer application, the design considered following key factors; 1-Controlling the output impedance by optimizing number of layers and layer thicknesses of the multilayer and 2- Evaluation of various electrodes and their affect on high power performance was evaluated. As the thickness of active layers decreased, the number of electrode layers increases. This increase in the metal to piezoelectric ratio and the relative increase in the electrode resistance under high current loads, both will have to be accounted for. With the piezoelectric composition and the device structure optimized, the research focused on candidate electrode materials and their effects on a multilayer piezoelectric transformer has been investigated. Transformers with silver/palladium, silver/platinum, pure silver and copper postfire electrodes were fabricated and significant differences in high power characteristics of the transformers as a function of the electrode resistivities have been observed. Silver/platinum, silver and copper electrode single disk postfire transformers showed 10W, 11.2W and 13.9W performances respectively. Multilayered piezoelectric transformers with three layer silver and silver platinum electrodes were fabricated and tested for performance. Silver electroded multilayered transformers showed 29 W against a 250U load, whereas silver/platinum electroded transformers were limited to 26W.