• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.286-289
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• 2004

This paper presents the fatigue characteristics of LIPCA (LIghtweight Piezo-Composite Actuator) device system. The LIPCA device system is composed of a piezoelectric ceramic layer and fiber reinforced lightweight 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. The advantages of the LIPCA design are weight reduction by using the lightweight fiber reinforced plastic layers without compromising the generation of high force and large displacement and design flexibility by selecting the fiber direction and the size of prepreg layers. To predict the degradation of actuation performance of LIPCA due to fatigue, the cyclic electric loading tests using PZT specimens were performed and the strain for a given excitation voltage was measured during the test. The results from the PZT fatigue test were implemented into CLPT (Classical Laminated Plate Theory) model to predict the degradation of LIPCA's actuation displacement. The fatigue characteristic of PZT was measured using a test system composed of a supporting jig, a high voltage power supplier, data acquisition board, PC, and evaluated.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.218-224
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• 2007

Although piezoelectric materials such as PZT have been widely used as actuators in the field of active vibration suppression, the use of bare PZT as an actuator may cause some drawbacks such as critical breaks in the installation process, short circuits in the host material and low fatigue performance. The LIPCA-C2 (lightweight piezocomposite actuator) was developed to alleviate these problems. We implemented the LIPCA as an actuator to suppress the vibration of an aluminum cantilever beam with a tip mass. In our test, we used positive position feedback control algorithm. The filter frequency for this type of feedback should be tuned to the natural frequency of the target mode. The first three experimental natural frequencies of the aluminum cantilever beam agree well with the results of finite element analysis. The effectiveness of using the LIPCA as an actuator in active vibration suppression was investigated with respect to the time and frequency domains, and the experimental results show that LIPCAs with PPF control can significantly reduce the amplitude of forced vibrations and the settling time of free vibrations. For a case study, the forced vibration control of several beams with different thicknesses were performed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.7-13
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• 2008

In this paper, the pumping performance of a piezoelectric valveless micropump is simulated with a commercial finite element analysis software, COMSOL Multiphysics. The micropump developed in the previous work is composed of a 4-layer lightweight piezo-composite actuator (LIPCA), a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) pump chamber, and two diffusers. The piezoelectric domain, structural domain and fluid domain are coupled in the simulation. Water flow rates are numerically predicted for geometric parameters of the micropump. Based on this study, the micropump is optimally designed to obtain its highest pumping performance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 1997.04a
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• pp.687-694
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• 1997

The anisotropy and shape of distributed piezopolymer actuator have advantages over isotropic piezo ceramic materials, since these features of PVDF can be utilized as another design variable in control application. This study is interested in the reduction of sound transmission through elastic plate into interior space by using the PVDF actuator. The plate-cavity system is adopted as a test problem. The vibration of composite plate and the sound fields through plate are analyzed by using the coupled finite element and boundary element method. Some numerical simulations are performed on sound transmission through elastic plates. To investigate the effects of anisotropy and shape of distributed piezopolymer actuator, various kinds of distributed PVDF actuators are applied in sound control simulation for isotropic and anisotropic plates. The PVDF actuators applied are different from each other in their shapes and laminate angles. The results of control simulation show that the control effectiveness of distributed PYDF actuator can be enhanced by using the coupling between shape of actuator and vibration modes of structure and the anisotropy of piezoelectric properties of PVDF.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.37-44
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• 2004

This paper deals with the performance analysis of LIPCA(Light-weight Piezo-Composite actuator) including the material nun-linearity of the embedded 3203HD PZT wafer. For this analysis, we used a piezo-shell element code based on a nine-node assumed strain shell element formulation. The material non-linearity was implemented in the formulation due to a large observed discrepancy between the measured displacement and the computed actuation displacement based on the linear analysis. An experimentally extracted piezo-strain function of the PZT wafer and incremental formulation were incorporated into the linear finite element code to improve the accuracy of the estimated actuation displacement of the LIPCA. The non-linear piezo-shell program was used to predict the non-linear performance of the LIPCA. The simulated actuation displacement from the non-linear code showed much better agreement with the measured data.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.35-41
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• 2006

In this paper, we focus on improving the performance of the piezoelectric diaphragms of valveless micropumps. A circular lightweight piezoelectric composite actuator (LIPCA) with a high level of displacement and output force has been developed for piezoelectrically actuated micropumps. We used numerical and experimental methods to analyze the characteristics of the actuator to select optimal design. With the developed circular LIPCA, we fabricated a valveless micropump by photo-lithography and PDMS molding techniques. The displacement of the diaphragm, the flow rate and the back pressure of the micropump were evaluated and discussed. With a semi-empirical method, the flow rate with respect to driving frequency was predicted and compared with experimental one. The test results confirm that the circular LIPCA is a promising candidate for micropump application and can be used as a substitute for a conventional piezoelectric actuator diaphragm.

• International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.76-83
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• 2000

A study on the robust control of a composite beam with a distributed PVDF sensor and piezo-ceramic actuator is presented in this paper. $1^{st}$ and $2^{nd}$ natural frequencies are considered in the modeling, because robust control theory which has robustness to structured uncertainty is adopted to suppress the vibration. If the controllers designed by $H_{\infty}$ theory do not satisfy control performance, it is improved by $\mu$-synthesis method with D-K iteration so that the $\mu$-controller based on the structured singular value satisfies the nominal performance and robust performance. Simulation and experiment were carried out with the designed controller and the verification of the robust control properties was presented by results.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.719-722
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• 2005

In this paper, we present out recent progress in the LIPCA (Lightweight Piezo-Composite Actuator) application for actuation of a flapping wing device. The flapping device uses linkage system that can amplify the actuation displacement of LIPCA. The feathering mechanism is also designed and implemented such that the wing can rotate during flapping. The natural flapping-frequency of the device was about 9 Hz, where the maximum flapping angle was achieved. The flapping test under 5 Hz to 15 Hz flapping frequency was performed to investigate the flapping performance by measuring the produced lift and thrust. Maximum lift and thrust were produced when the flapping device was actuated at about the natural flapping-frequency.