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Piezoelectric Analysis

2.3. Piezoelectric Analysis

Piezoelectrics is the coupling of structural and electric fields, which is a natural property of materials
such as quartz and ceramics. Applying a voltage to a piezoelectric material creates a displacement,
and vibrating a piezoelectric material generates a voltage. A typical application of piezoelectric
analysis is a pressure transducer. Possible piezoelectric analysis types (available in the ANSYS
Multiphysics or ANSYS Mechanical products only) are static, modal, harmonic, and transient.

To do a piezoelectric analysis, you need to use one of these element types:

PLANE13, KEYOPT(1) = 7 coupled-field quadrilateral solid

SOLID5, KEYOPT(1) = 0 or 3 coupled-field brick
SOLID98, KEYOPT(1) = 0 or 3 coupled-field tetrahedron
PLANE223, KEYOPT(1) = 1001, coupled-field 8-node quadrilateral
SOLID226, KEYOPT(1) = 1001, coupled-field 20-node brick
SOLID227, KEYOPT(1) = 1001, coupled-field 10-node tetrahedron

The KEYOPT settings activate the piezoelectric degrees of freedom, displacements and VOLT. For
SOLID5 and SOLID98, setting KEYOPT(1) = 3 activates the piezoelectric only option.

Large deflections, stress stiffening effects, and prestress effects are available via the NLGEOM and
PSTRES commands. (See the Command Reference
for more information on these commands. See
the Structural Analysis Guide and Structures with Geometric Nonlinearities
of the Mechanical APDL
Theory Reference for more information on these capabilities.) Current-technology elements
PLANE223, SOLID226 and SOLID227 also support a linear perturbation piezoelectric analysis. (See
Linear Perturbation Analysis in the Structural Analysis Guide
for information about the procedure.)

For PLANE13, large deflection and stress stiffening capabilities are available for KEYOPT(1) = 7. For
SOLID5 and SOLID98, large deflection and stress stiffening capabilities are available for KEYOPT(1) =
3. In addition, small deflection stress stiffening capabilities are available for KEYOPT(1) = 0.

For a large-deflection piezoelectric analysis, you must use nonlinear solution commands to specify
your settings. For general information on these commands, refer to in the Set Solution Controls
Structural Analysis Guide .

For sample analyses, see Example: Piezoelectric Analysis and Example: Piezoelectric Analysis with
Coriolis Effect
.

2.3.1. Hints and Recommendations for Piezoelectric Analysis

The analysis may be static, modal, harmonic, transient, or prestressed modal, harmonic, or transient.
Some important points to remember are:

For modal analysis, Block Lanczos is the recommended solver. The Supernode and
Subspace solvers are also allowed. PCG Lanczos is not supported unless using Lev_Diff =
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5 on the PCGOPT command.

For static, full harmonic, or full transient analysis, select the sparse matrix (SPARSE) solver
or the Jacobi Conjugate Gradient (JCG) solver. The sparse solver is the default for static and
full transient analyses. Depending on the chosen system of units or material property
values, the assembled matrix may become ill-conditioned. When solving ill-conditioned
matrices, the JCG iterative solver may converge to the wrong solution. The assembled
matrix typically becomes ill-conditioned when the magnitudes of the structural DOF and
electrical DOF start to vary significantly (more than 1e15).

For transient analyses, specify ALPHA = 0.25, DELTA = 0.5, and THETA = 0.5 on the TINTP
command (Main Menu> Preprocessor> Loads> Time/Frequenc>Time
Integration).

A linear perturbation piezoelectric analysis is available only with PLANE223, SOLID226, and
SOLID227 elements.

For PLANE13, SOLID5, and SOLID98, the force label for the VOLT DOF is AMPS. For
PLANE223, SOLID226, and SOLID227, the force label for the VOLT degree of freedom is
CHRG. Use these labels in F, CNVTOL, RFORCE, etc.

To do a piezoelectric-circuit analysis, use CIRCU94.

The capability to model dielectric losses using the dielectric loss tangent property (input on
MP,LSST) is available only for PLANE223, SOLID226, and SOLID227.

The Coriolis effect capability is available only for PLANE223, SOLID226, and SOLID227. For
information on how to include this effect, see Rotating Structure Analysis in the Advanced
Analysis Guide . For a sample analyses, see Example: Piezoelectric Analysis with Coriolis
Effect.

If a model has at least one piezoelectric element, then all the coupled-field elements with
structural and VOLT degrees of freedom must be of piezoelectric type. If the piezoelectric
effect is not desired in these elements, simply define very small piezoelectric coefficients on
TB.

Mode-superposition transient and harmonic analyses are available. For volt excitation, use
the enforced motion procedure (for an example, see Example: Mode-Superposition
Piezoelectric Analysis ). Because mode-superposition analysis assumes proportional damping,
electrical sensitivity (MP,RSVX, RSVY and RSVZ) and electric loss tangent (MP,LSST) are
not supported. If you are interested in results such as electric fields (Item = EF on
PRNSOL, PLNSOL, PRESOL, or PLESOL) or charges (Item = CHRG on PRESOL or
PLESOL), request an expansion which is not based on modal elements results by specifying
MSUPkey = NO on the MXPAND command.

2.3.2. Material Properties for Piezoelectric Analysis

A piezoelectric model requires permittivity (or dielectric constants), the piezoelectric matrix, and the
elastic coefficient matrix to be specified as material properties. These are explained next.

The following related topics are available:

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Permittivity Matrix (Dielectric Constants)

Piezoelectric Matrix
Elastic Coefficient Matrix
2.3.2.1. Permittivity Matrix (Dielectric Constants)

For SOLID5, PLANE13, or SOLID98 you specify relative permittivity values as PERX, PERY, and PERZ
on the MP command (Main Menu> Preprocessor> Material Props> Material Models>
Electromagnetics> Relative Permittivity> Orthotropic). (Refer to the EMUNIT command for
information on free-space permittivity.) The permittivity values represent the diagonal components
ε11, ε22, and ε33 respectively of the permittivity matrix [εS]. (The superscript "S" indicates that the
constants are evaluated at constant strain.) That is, the permittivity input on the MP command will
always be interpreted as permittivity at constant strain [εS].

Note: If you enter permittivity values less than 1 for SOLID5, PLANE13, or SOLID98,
the program interprets the values as absolute permittivity.

For PLANE223, SOLID226, and SOLID227, you can specify permittivity either as PERX, PERY, PERZ on
the MP command or by specifying the terms of the anisotropic permittivity matrix using the TB,DPER
and TBDATA commands. If you select to use the MP command to specify permittivity, the
permittivity input will be interpreted as permittivity at constant strain. If you select to use the
TB,DPER command (Main Menu> Preprocessor> Material Props> Material Models>
Electromagnetics> Relative Permittivity> Anisotropic), you can specify the permittivity matrix
at constant strain [εS] (TBOPT = 0) or at constant stress [εT] (TBOPT = 1). The latter input will be
internally converted to permittivity at constant strain [εS] using the piezoelectric strain and stress
matrices. The values input on either MP,PERX or TB,DPER will always be interpreted as relative
permittivity.

2.3.2.2. Piezoelectric Matrix

You can define the piezoelectric matrix in [e] form (piezoelectric stress matrix) or in [d] form
(piezoelectric strain matrix). The [e] matrix is typically associated with the input of the anisotropic
elasticity in the form of the stiffness matrix [c], while the [d] matrix is associated with the compliance
matrix [s].

Note: The program converts a piezoelectric strain matrix [d] matrix to a piezoelectric
stress matrix [e] using the elastic matrix at the first defined temperature. To specify
the elastic matrix required for this conversion, use the TB,ANEL command (not the MP
command).

This 6 x 3 matrix (4 x 2 for 2-D models) relates the electric field to stress ([e] matrix) or to strain ([d]
matrix). Both the [e] and the [d] matrices use the data table input described below:

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The TB,PIEZ and TBDATA commands are used to define the piezoelectric matrix; see your Command
Referencefor the order of input of these constants.

To define the piezoelectric matrix via the GUI, use the following:

Main Menu> Preprocessor> Material Props> Material Models> Piezoelectrics>

Piezoelectric matrix

For most published piezoelectric materials, the order used for the piezoelectric matrix is x, y, z, yz, xz,
xy, based on IEEE standards (see ANSI/IEEE Standard 176–1987), while the input order is x, y, z, xy,
yz, xz as shown above. This means that you need to transform the matrix to the input order by
switching row data for the shear terms as shown below:

IEEE constants [e61, e62, e63] would be input as the xy row

IEEE constants [e41, e42, e43] would be input as the yz row

IEEE constants [e51, e52, e53] would be input as the xz row

2.3.2.3. Elastic Coefficient Matrix

This 6 x 6 symmetric matrix (4 x 4 for 2-D models) specifies the stiffness ([c] matrix) or compliance
([s] matrix) coefficients.

Note: This section follows the IEEE standard notation for the elastic coefficient matrix
[c]. The matrix is also referred to as [D].

The elastic coefficient matrix uses the following data table input:

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Use the TB,ANEL (Main Menu> Preprocessor> Material Props> Material Models>
Structural> Linear> Elastic> Anisotropic) and TBDATA commands to define the coefficient
matrix [c] (or [s], depending on the TBOPT settings); see the Command Reference
for the order of
input of these constants. As explained for the piezoelectric matrix, most published piezoelectric
materials use a different order for the [c] matrix. You need to transform the IEEE matrix to the input
order by switching row and column data for the shear terms as shown below:

IEEE terms [c61, c62, c63, c66] would be input as the xy row

IEEE terms [c41, c42, c43, c46, c44] would be input as the yz row

IEEE terms [c51, c52, c53, c56, c54, c55] would be input as the xz row

An alternative to the [c] matrix is to specify Young's modulus (MP,EX command) and Poisson's ratio
(MP,NUXY command) and/or shear modulus (MP,GXY command). (See the for Command Reference
more information on the MP command). To specify any of these via the GUI, use the following:

Main Menu> Preprocessor> Material Props> Material Models> Structural> Linear>

Elastic> Orthotropic

For micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), it is best to set up problems in µMKSV or µMSVfA units
(seeTable 1.9: Piezoelectric Conversion Factors for MKS to μMKSV and Table 1.16: Piezoelectric
Conversion Factors for MKS to μMKSVfA ).

Release 16.2 - © SAS IP, Inc. All rights reserved.

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