New Experimental Techniques for <Emphasis Type="Italic">In-situ</Emphasis> Measurement of the Damage Characteristics of Piezoelectric Ceramics under High Cycle Fatigue Testing

To better understand the failure characteristics of lead titanate zirconate (PZT) piezoelectric ceramics, in-situ measurements of displacement and crack growth rates were conducted during high cycle fatigue testing, e.g., 5 kHz. A commercial PZT ceramic (used in a buzzer) was employed as the specimen. To examine the failure characteristics, two newly proposed systems were used: (i) a high speed camera system and (ii) a condenser microphone system. The former system consisted of two high speed cameras with an analytical system, which could measure the displacement of the PZT ceramic during the cyclic loading. The maximum displacement value of the ceramic was found to be approximately 20 μm at 0.5 kHz. The three-dimensional shape of the PZT ceramic during cyclic loading could be clearly observed. With the latter system, the displacement intensity arising from the ceramic vibration was detected continuously. It was found that the crack growth rate was not correlated with the fatigue frequency due to the resonance caused by the ceramic oscillation. There is a linear relationship between the crack growth rate and sonar intensity. On the basis of the crack growth behavior, the failure characteristics of the PZT ceramic could be clearly determined.