Effect of a biasing electric field on the propagation of antisymmetric Lamb waves in piezoelectric plates

Based on the theories of anisotropic elasticity, piezoelectricity and elastic waves in solids, the propagation of antisymmetric Lamb waves in a biasing electric field is investigated in this paper. By solving the coupled differential equations of motion under a biasing electric field, the phase velocity equations of antisymmetric Lamb wave modes for electrically open and shorted cases are obtained, respectively. The beating effect arising from the difference between the phase velocity of the zero-order symmetric mode and antisymmetric mode exists in the plate when the plate has a thickness comparable to or slightly larger than the wavelength. The influence of the biasing electric field on the phase velocity, beat wavelength, mechanical displacement and stress fields for the lowest two antisymmetric modes of Lamb waves are discussed in detail. From the calculated results, it is seen that the phase velocity of the fundamental antisymmetric mode is especially sensitive to the applied biasing electric field