Modeling of Piezoelectric Bimorph Nano-Actuators With Surface Effects

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) equations of piezoelectric bimorph nano-actuators are presented which take account of the surface effect. The surface effect of the bimorph structure is treated as a surface layer with zero thickness. The influence on the plate's overall properties resulted from the surface elasticity and piezoelectricity is modeled by a spring force exerting on the boundary of the bulk core. Using the derived 2D equations, the anti-parallel piezoelectric bimorph nano-actuators of both cantilever and simply supported plate type are investigated theoretically. Numerical results show that the effective properties and the deflections of the antiparallel bimorph nano-actuators are size-dependent. The deflection at the resonant frequency achieves nearly 50 times as that under the static driving voltage.