Design, Prototyping, and Characterization of an Innovative Piezoelectric Rotary Actuator

An innovative actuation principle is introduced in this paper to drive a rotary motor using an anisotropic piezoelectric composite laminate. The driving element is a three layer laminated beam with piezoceramics sandwiched between two anti-symmetric composite laminae. By taking advantage of material anisotropy, torsional motion can be induced from in-plane strain actuation. With such structural coupling, a rotary motor can be implemented. In addition to conceptual design, a prototype has been fabricated. Actual motion was observed in the laboratory to verify the proposed actuation principle. The performance of this newly developed piezoelectric motor is characterized and discussed.