Dynamic electromechanical response of multilayered piezoelectric composites from room to cryogenic temperatures for fuel injector applications

This paper studies the dynamic electromechanical response of multilayered piezoelectric composites under ac electric fields from room to cryogenic temperatures for fuel injector applications. A shift in the morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) between the tetragonal and rhombohedral/monoclinic phases with decreasing temperature was determined using a thermodynamic model, and the temperature dependent piezoelectric coefficients were obtained. Temperature dependent coercive electric field was also predicted based on the domain wall energy. A phenomenological model of domain wall motion was then used in a finite element computation, and the nonlinear electromechanical fields of the multilayered piezoelectric composites from room to cryogenic temperatures, due to the domain wall motion and shift in the MPB, were calculated. In addition, experimental results on the ac electric field induced strain were presented to validate the predictions.