Finite element analysis is carried out to investigate the characteristics of Rayleigh, Sezawa and Love surface acoustic modes travelling along c-axis tilted ZnO layer on Si (001) half-space. The phase velocity dispersion curves, electromechanical coupling, reflectivity and mass loading sensitivity are studied for different electroacoustic coupling configurations and c-axis tilt angles θ. The behavior of Rayleigh and Sezawa modes operating as gas sensor, was simulated under the hypothesis that the ZnO free surface is covered with a thin polyisobutylene (PIB) film, 0.2 μm thick, able to selectively adsorb volatile gases at atmospheric pressure and room temperature. The sensor sensitivity to gas concentration in air, i.e. the frequency shifts per unit gas concentration, is studied and compared to some common materials used in literature. The obtained results, demonstrate the feasibility of high-frequency multimode micro-sensor based on the c-axis tilted ZnO piezoelectric thin film and operating in both liquid and gaseous environments.

This paper presents an analytical solution for the interaction of electric potentials, electric displacement, elastic deformations, and describes hygrothermal effect responses in hollow and solid cylinders, subjected to mechanical load and electric potential. Exact solutions for displacement, stresses and electric potentials in functionally graded piezoelectric material are determined using the infinitesimal theory. The material properties coefficients of the present cylinder are assumed to be graded in the radial direction by a power law distribution. Numerical examples display the significant of influence of material inhomogeneity. It is interesting to note that selecting a specific value of inhomogeneity parameter can optimize the piezoelectric hollow and solid cylinders responses, which will be of particular importance in modern engineering designs.

Piezoelectric materials have a strong interaction between their mechanical and electrical properties that translates into innovative components and circuits architectures. This work describes an original method using the electromechanical properties of the aluminum nitride (AlN) piezoelectric material to characterize its vertical extension when an electric field is applied. The novel techniques based on measurements of a planar parallel plate AlN capacitor without and with bias employing an impedance analyzer. The parallel plate capacitor theory and piezoelectric material analysis are used to calculate the vertical displacement of the AlN film.

The problem of a semi-infinite propagating crack in the piezoelectric material subjected to a dynamic anti-plane concentrated body force is investigated in the present study. It is assumed that between the growing crack surfaces there is a permeable vacuum free space, in which the electrostatic potential is nonzero. It is noted that this problem has characteristic lengths and a direct attempt towards solving this problem by transform and Wiener-Hopf techniques [1] is not applicable. This paper proposes a new fundamental solution for propagating crack in the piezoelectric material and the transient response of the propagating crack is determined by superposition of the fundamental solution in the Laplace transform domain. The fundamental solution represents the responses of applying exponentially distributed loadings in the Laplace transform domain on the propagating crack surface. Exact analytical transient solutions for the dynamic stress intensity factor and the dynamic electric displacement intensity factor are obtained by using the Cagniard-de Hoop method [2,3] of Laplace inversion and are expressed in explicit forms. Finally, numerical results based on analytical solutions are calculated and are discussed in detail.

Due to external loads, damage extension forces will drive mechanical and electrical damages to evolve in piezoelectric materials from the viewpoint of continuum damage mechanics, so it is important for understanding piezoelectric fracture mechanism and estimating the utilizing life and safety of a piezoelectric device to study the damage extension forces. Based on the static piezoelectric damage constitutive model established in our previously published papers, general expressions of the damage extension forces are given. The finite element method and the iterative procedure are utilized to calculate the extension forces at crack-tips in the samples for the experiments of Park and Sun's, and then the linear and nonlinear fracture criteria are presented. It is revealed from the list of the normalized mean square deviations that the nonlinear criterion is better.