Abstract
Failure of poled PZT has been experimentally studied using ball-on-ring (BoR) biaxial flexure strength tests with an electric field concurrently applied. The as-received and aged PZTs were tested in high electric fields of -3 to 4 times the coercive field. Both the sign and the magnitude of electric field had a significant effect on the strength of poled PZT. A surface flaw type with a depth of around 18 m was identified as the strength limiter and responsible for the failure of the tested PZT. With a value of 0.76 MPam1/2 in the open circle condition, the fracture toughness of the poled PZT was affected by an applied electric field just as the strength was affected. These results and observations have the potential to serve probabilistic reliability analysis and design optimization of multilayer PZT piezo actuators.
