Signal analysis of flexoelectric transducers on rings

In this study, a flexoelectric layer is laminated on ring shells to monitor the modal signal distributions. Due to the strain gradient, only the bending strain component contributes to the output signal. The total signal contains two bending strain gradient components respectively induced by the transverse modal oscillation and the circumferential modal oscillation. Signal analysis suggests that the bending component signal induced by the transverse modal oscillation is dominant and its magnitude shows nearly the same as the total signal. Voltage signals are evaluated in case studies with different ring modes and sensor segment sizes. Results indicate that the total signal increases with the mode number, decreases with the sensor segment size. These results serve as design guideline to select proper segment patches for practical engineering applications using flexoelectric transducers.