Theoretical and Experimental Verification of Using PZT Ceramic Plates as Strain Rate Transducers for Flexible Structures

This paper introduces the use of Piezoelectric Ceramic plates as strain rate transducers for light weight flexible structures. This has been applied and tested at different set points of a flexible oscillatory cantilever arm, where the introduced strain rate measurements used in turn to compute the flexible arm generalized velocities. The sensitivity of PZT Ceramic materials to strain rates has been theoretically formulated and experimentally tested. Stresses of oscillatory arm give rise to voltages being produced at the gauge electrodes due to piezoelectric effect. Transfer function amplitude and phase between experimental strain and strain rate measurements reflected excellent verification of PZT Ceramic plates as strain rate sensors.