Analysis of a piezoelectric composite microcantilever for accelerometer applications

Analysis of a composite microcantilever is performed with specific application to resonant accelerometers. The structures of interest are composite plates consisting of silicon with piezoelectric layers such as zinc oxide or quartz. A classical laminate theory approach is applied to the problems of static and dynamic behavior of layered piezoelectric plates under cylindrical bending assumptions. These methods are suitable for the study of thin plates (a/b>20). A first order plate expansion is used which includes the effects of shear deformation and rotatory inertia. The particular solution under uniform mechanical and electrical loading for the static bending problem is presented in closed form. Using the static and dynamic solutions, the acceleration sensitivity of the composite cantilever is estimated using a perturbation method