Piezoelectric Actuators 2016 ‒ Professors’ Misconceptions Top 10 (Review)

K. Uchino, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

Abstract:
The “piezoelectric actuator” is really an interdisciplinary area, to which materials, applied physics, electrical and mechanical engineers are primarily approaching. Because of narrow knowledge of junior professors, they occasionally instruct the students with a sort of ‘misconception’, reflecting to the delay of innovative developments in the next generation. This paper reviews the top 10 among these misconceptions, which are primarily related with the misconceptions on the understanding of ‘ionic displacement and strain’, ‘efficiency’, ‘energy transmission coefficient’, ‘constraint-dependency of piezo-material properties’, ‘mechanical impedance matching’, ‘piezoelectric damping mechanism’, ‘resonance & anti-resonance’, ‘best-selling devices’, and
‘system design principle’.