Abstract
This paper is concerned with design, manufacturing and performance test of LIPCA ( Lightweight Piezo- composite Curved Actuator) using a top carbon fiber composite layer with near -zero CTE(coefficient of thermal expansion), a middle PZT ceramic wafer and a bottom glass/epoxy layer with high CTE. The main point of this design is to replace the heavy metal layers of THUNDER by thigh tweight fiber reinforced plastic layers without losing capabilities to generate high force and large displacement. It is possible to save weight up to about 30% if we replace the metallic backing material by the light fiber composite layer. We can also have design flexibility by selecting the fiber direction and the size of prepreg layers. In addition to the lightweight advantage and design flexibility, the proposed device can be manufactured without adhesive layers when we use epoxy resin prepreg system. Glass/epoxy prepregs, a ceramic wafer with electrode surfaces, and a graphite/epoxy prepreg were simply stacked and cured at an elevated temperature (177 $^{circ}C$ after following an autoclave bagging process. It was found that the manufactured composite laminate device had a sufficient curvature after detached from a flat mold. The analysis method of the cure curvature of LIPCA using the classical lamination theory is presented. The predicted curvatures are fairly in agreement with the experimental ones. In order to investigate the merits of LIPCA, a performance test of both LIPCA and THUNDE$^{TM}$ were conducted under the same boundary conditions. From the experimental actuation tests, it was observed that the developed actuator could generate larger actuation displacement than THUNDERT$^{TM}$.
