Investigation of a flat-type piezoelectric motor using in-plane vibrations

This paper presents a flat-type piezoelectric motor utilizing in-plane vibration modes. Two piezoelectric ceramic plates in combination with a brass metal sheet were used to construct the stator. The superposition of two second order in-plane vibration modes can generate a traveling-wave inside the stator. The greatest advantage of the proposed motor lies in its sheet structure configuration, which significantly reduces the overall size of piezoelectric motors exploiting in-plane vibrations, particularly in terms of thickness. Meanwhile, the stator also demonstrates greater vibration displacements when compared to higher-order operating modes. Through discussing the impact of stator structure parameters on the vibration deflection angle θ, the excitation ways of operating modes were investigated. Subsequently, the finite element method was utilized to explore both the static and dynamic vibration properties of the stator. Simulation results suggest that at a steady state, stator driving points achieve vibrations at the micro-meter level, satisfying actual application requirements. Finally, a prototype motor was fabricated. Driven by two-phase alternating voltage with a frequency of 69.4 kHz, the no-load speed and stall torque of the prototype motor are 52 rpm and 3.2 mN m, respectively.