• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.126-129
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• 2001

LIPCA (LIghtweight Piezo-composite Curved Actuator) is an actuator device which is lighter than other conventional piezoelectric ceramic type actuator. LIPCA is composed of a piezoelectric ceramic layer and fiber reinforced light composite layers, typically a PZT ceramic layer is sandwiched by a top fiber layer with low CTE (coefficient of thermal expansion) and base layers with high CTE. LIPCA has curved shape like a typical THUNDER (thin-layer composite unimorph feroelectric driver and sensor), but it is lighter an than THUNDER. Since the curved shape of LIPCA is from the thermal deformation during the manufacturing process of unsymmetrically laminated lay-up structure, an analysis for the thermal deformation and residual stresses induced during the manufacturing process is very important for an optimal design to increase the performance of LIPCA. To investigate the thermal deformation behavior and the induced residual stresses of LIPCA at room temperature, the curvatures of LIPCA were measured and compared with those predicted from the analysis using the classical lamination theory. A methodology is being studied to find an optimal stacking sequence and geometry of LIPCA to have larger specific actuating displacement and higher force. The residual stresses induced during the cooling process of the piezo-composite actuators have been calculated. A lay-up geometry for the PZT ceramic layer to have compression stress in the geometrical principal direction has been designed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.94-100
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• 2002

This paper is concerned with the development, and performance test of LIPCA (Lightweight Piezo-composite Curved Actuator) that is lighter than other conventional piezo-composite type actuators. LIPCA is composed of top fiber composite layers with a high modulus and low CTE (Coefficient of Thermal Expansion), a middle PZT cermaic wafer, and base layers with a high modulus and high CTE. The performance of each actuator was evaluated using an actuator test system consisting of an actuator supporting jig, a high voltage actuating power supplier, and a non-contact laser measuring system. The simply supported condition actuator was excited by the power supplier with 1.0Hz cycle and up to $100\sim400V_{pp}$. The displacement at the center point of actuator was measured with non-contact laser displacement measuring system, It has been shown that the LIPCA-C2 can 34% decrease in mass and 13% increase in displacement compared to THUNDER.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.10
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• pp.1514-1519
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• 2001

This paper is concerned with design, manufacturing and performance test of LIPCA ( Lightweight Piezo- composite Curved Actuator) using a top carbon fiber composite layer with near -zero CTE(coefficient of thermal expansion), a middle PZT ceramic wafer and a bottom glass/epoxy layer with high CTE. The main point of this design is to replace the heavy metal layers of THUNDER by thigh tweight fiber reinforced plastic layers without losing capabilities to generate high force and large displacement. It is possible to save weight up to about 30% if we replace the metallic backing material by the light fiber composite layer. We can also have design flexibility by selecting the fiber direction and the size of prepreg layers. In addition to the lightweight advantage and design flexibility, the proposed device can be manufactured without adhesive layers when we use epoxy resin prepreg system. Glass/epoxy prepregs, a ceramic wafer with electrode surfaces, and a graphite/epoxy prepreg were simply stacked and cured at an elevated temperature (177 $^{circ}C$ after following an autoclave bagging process. It was found that the manufactured composite laminate device had a sufficient curvature after detached from a flat mold. The analysis method of the cure curvature of LIPCA using the classical lamination theory is presented. The predicted curvatures are fairly in agreement with the experimental ones. In order to investigate the merits of LIPCA, a performance test of both LIPCA and THUNDE$^{TM}$ were conducted under the same boundary conditions. From the experimental actuation tests, it was observed that the developed actuator could generate larger actuation displacement than THUNDERT$^{TM}$.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.11
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• pp.1881-1886
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• 2001

A numerical method for actuating performance evaluation of LIPCA proposed using a finite element method. Fully coupled formulations for piezo-electric materials were introduced and 3-dimensional eight-node incompatible element was used. After verifying the developed code with typical examples, the center deflections of LIPCA were calculated and compared with the experimental result, which were in fairly agreement.

• Advanced Composite Materials
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.327-338
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• 2009

In this paper, through an evaluation process conducted on several designs of mini-LIPCA (Lightweight Piezo-Composite curved Actuator), an optimal design of a mini-LIPCA has been proposed. Comparing with the LIPCA-C2, the design of the mini-LIPCA comes with reduced overall size and a thinner active layer. Since a variation in the number and lay-up of fiber composite layers may strongly affect the performance of the device, one is able to configure several designs of mini-LIPCA. The evaluation process is then followed in order to determine a configuration which characterizes the possibly optimal performance. That is, a design of a mini-LIPCA is said to be optimal if it is capable of producing a maximum out-of-plane displacement. The size of the LIPCA to be investigated was selected to be $10\;mm\;{\times}\;20\;mm$ in which the thickness of PZT plate is about 0.1 mm. The thickness of glass/epoxy and carbon/epoxy are about 0.09 mm and 0.1 mm, respectively. The evaluation process has been conducted thoroughly, i.e., analytical estimation, numerical approximation and the experimental measurement are all involved. Firstly, the design equation was used to calculate essential parameters of proposed lay-up configurations. Secondly, ANSYS, a commercial FEA package, was utilized to estimate displacement outputs of the actuators upon being excited. Finally, experimental measurements were able to verify the predicted results.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.31 no.1 s.256
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• pp.36-42
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• 2007

This paper presents mechanical design, fabrication and test of a biomimetic fish robot actuated by a unimorph piezoceramic actuator, LIPCA(Lightweight Piezo-Composite curved Actuator.) We have designed a linkage mechanism that can convert bending motion of the LIPCA into the caudal fin movement. This linkage system consists of a rack-pinion system and four-bar linkage. Four types of artificial caudal fins that resemble caudal fin shapes of ostraciiform subcarangiform, carangiform, and thunniform fish, respectively, are attached to the posterior part of the robotic fish. The swimming test under 300 $V_{pp}$ input with 0.6 Hz to 1.2 Hz frequency was conducted to investigate effect of tail beat frequency and shape of caudal fin on the swimming speed of the robotic fish. At the frequency of 0.9 Hz, the maximum swimming speeds of 1.632 cm/s, 1.776 cm/s, 1.612 cm/s and 1.51 cm/s were reached for fish robots with ostraciiform, subcarangiform carangiform and thunniform caudal fins, respectively. The Strouhal number, which means the ratio between unsteady force and inertia force, or a measure of thrust efficiency, was calculated in order to examine thrust performance of the present biomimetic fish robot. The calculated Strouhal numbers show that the present robotic fish does not fall into the performance range of a fast swimming robot.