Wave propagations of curvilinear motors driven by partially laminated piezoelectric actuators

A piezoelectric arc stator is the key component delivering driving actions to an ultrasonic curvilinear motor. The arc stator drives the rotor along the arc structure to any specific angular position. Usually conventional stators in ultrasonic motors are fully bounded with piezoelectric patch actuators. To reduce production costs while maintaining similar driving characteristics, an arc stator partially bonded with piezoelectric actuators is proposed and its dynamic characteristics are analyzed in this study. The effect of actuator locations on the wave propagation is investigated. Both analytical and finite element results demonstrate similar dynamic responses. That is, the response of the wave propagation depends on specific locations of piezoelectric actuators. One of the two configurations investigated shows that the partially laminated piezoelectric actuator pattern can also generate rather steady traveling waves on the stator with consistent wave amplitude. This implies that the partially laminated actuator technique could be an alternative actuator pattern to the fully laminated actuators in the design of ultrasonic curvilinear motors or other finite-length ultrasonic motors.