Although lead-free piezoelectric ceramics have been extensively studied, many problems must still be overcome before they are suitable for practical use. One of the main problems is fabricating a multilayer structure, and one solution attracting growing interest is the use of lead-free multilayer piezoelectric ceramics. The paper reviews work that has been done by the authors on lead-free alkal...

Sensors and actuators based on piezoelectric ceramics are finding an increasingly large variety of applications under a very wide range of environmental conditions and applied signals. Some actuator applications require the piezoelectric materials to support large mechanical loads and produce high strain output. In order to accomplish this requirement of higher strains, large electric fields mu...

We study in this work the processing of NaNbO3 ceramics prepared in a single thermal treatment of highly reactive precursors obtained by mechanical activation of different reagents, aiming to determine optimum conditions for piezoelectric ceramics production. Pressure-less sintering at 1200oC leads to dense ceramics (<5% porosity) with poor mechanical stability, unsuitable for practical uses. D...

The discovery of piezoelectricity in natural bone has attracted extensive research in emulating biological electricity for various tissue regeneration. Here, we carried out experiments to build biocompatible potassium sodium niobate (KNN) ceramics. Then, influence substrate surface charges on bovine serum albumin (BSA) protein adsorption and cell proliferation on KNN ceramics surfaces was inves...

The piezoelectric material selection and the circuit design in vibrational energy harvesting are discussed. The performances of the energy-harvesting unimorph devices that captured frequencies of 60 Hz by using piezoelectric PZT-based and BT-based ceramics were evaluated. Output voltages and power from the devices depend on the amplitude and the frequency of the oscillations, and depend on the ...

This paper investigates application of piezoelectric ceramics mounted on surface of mould to monitor flow front and curing phases of resin in Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM) process. The piezoelectric ceramic is used for both generating ultrasound and measuring energy of echoed ultrasonic wave at the interface of mould and resin. One of the advantages of this method is that the piezoelectric cera...

The piezoelectric effect of biological piezoelectric materials promotes bone growth. However, the material should be subjected to stress before it can produce an electric charge that promotes bone repair and reconstruction conducive to fracture healing. A novel method for in vitro experimentation of biological piezoelectric materials with physiological load is presented. A dynamic loading devic...

In this study, a modified disk-shaped multiple-output piezoelectric transformer operated at the fundamental radial vibration mode has been presented. A derived equivalent circuit for the multioutput piezoelectric transformer was used to analyze the performance. Two piezoelectric transformers, a symmetrically electroded piezoelectric transformer with dual outputs and an asymmetrically electroded...

This review explores piezoelectric ceramics analysis and characterization. The focus is on polycrystalline ceramics; therefore, single crystals, polymeric materials and organic/inorganic composites are outside the scope of this review. To thoroughly grasp the behavior of a piezoelectric polycrystalline ceramic, a basic understanding of the ceramic itself should not be overlooked. To this end, w...