Static behavior of piezoelectric actuated beams

This study details the static experimental behavior of a cantilever beam actuated using piezoceramic patches. Results of static experiments are extremely rare in the literature; current applications are focusing mostly on a dynamic environment. Experiments were performed by running a DC current through the piezoelectric patches, and several important points were discovered to do proper testing. The material must be prepared by adding a DC voltage at or higher than the proposed test voltage to minimize drift during the test. Experimental results were compared with the finite element code ADINA predictions using its built-in piezoelectric modeling routine, with modeling in good agreement if the nonlinear electromechanical coupling is used.