Lifetime of laminar piezoceramic modules under cyclic tensile loading

Piezoceramic modules used for sensor or actuator applications in smart structures are typically subjected to alternating electro-mechanical loading. Primarily they have to withstand the operational conditions of the host structure, which can include large deformations. To ensure a reliable, reproducible module performance within an expected device lifetime, the loading limits and fatigue behavior of lead-zirconate-titanate (PZT) plate based modules are studied under tensile loading and a lifetime model based on micro-crack propagation was derived. Cracking of the piezoceramic plate is found to cause a degradation of the module performance. A shear lag based model is used to analyze the correlation between fragmentation and performance reduction, yielding good quantitative agreement to experimental data.