A parasitic type piezoelectric actuator with the asymmetrical trapezoid flexure mechanism

Abstract With the help of the parasitic motion of the asymmetrical trapezoid flexure mechanism, a piezoelectric actuator which could achieve linear motion with large working stroke has been presented and inspected. The structure of the asymmetrical trapezoid flexure mechanism and the motion principle of the proposed piezoelectric actuator are introduced and investigated in details. Finite Element Method (FEM) has been exploited, and an experimental system has been built up to study the working performance of the proposed piezoelectric actuator. Simulation results confirm that the parasitic motion could be achieved by the asymmetrical trapezoid flexure mechanism. Additionally, the dynamic model has been proposed for the investigation. Experimental results show that the presented actuator could obtain continuous linear motion with large working stroke by the parasitic motion of the proposed asymmetrical trapezoid flexure mechanism. The minimum stepping displacement of the proposed actuator is 0.68 μm; the maximum speed is 4676 μm/s; the output force could be as large as 91.3 g. This study shows a meaningful idea of the utilization of the asymmetrical trapezoid flexure mechanism for the design of novel piezoelectric actuators.