Electrophoretic Deposition of Functionally Graded Monomorph

In the present work, investigation of the functional property of piezoelectric graded monomorph actuator systems is presented. The functional graded actuators were fabricated by electrophoretic deposition (EPD) using pure PZT and doped PZT materials. Actuators developed have shown gradual gradient variation in microstructure. It is noted that trend in microstructural gradient does not represent similar trend in piezoelectric property gradient. The displacement of microstructural graded and both piezoelectric and microstructural graded actuators were measured. The results show that the gradient distribution of the piezoelectric properties is important to improve the electromechanical performance of the actuator.