In-plane P-SV waves from a piezoelectric strip actuator: exact versus effective boundary condition solutions

A piezoelectric strip of finite width and thickness is placed on top of an isotropic elastic half space. It operates in actuator mode, and a time harmonic voltage is thus applied across it. The piezoelectric material is of type 6 mm oriented so that a two-dimensional (2-D) in-plane (P-SV) problem results. By Fourier series expansions, the problem is solved exactly, and this result is compared to the case when the piezoelectric strip is replaced by an effective boundary condition, which is derived by series expansions in the thickness coordinate in the piezoelectric strip. At low frequencies, the results agree very well, and this corresponds to the situation often met in practice. In general, the effective boundary condition should be much easier to apply, for example when a finite element method (FEM) program is used.