Abstract:
Piezoelectric fiber composite faces a challenge of an extremely wide temperature range when it is used in aerospace devices. So it is necessary to investigate the influence of temperature on the strain performance of piezoelectric fiber composite. In this paper, the free strain properties of piezoelectric fiber composites prepared using three kinds of polymer matrices were evaluated from −15℃ to 60℃. The results show that the free strain properties of all piezoelectric fiber composites are strongly dependent on the ambient temperature. The free strain values of piezoelectric fiber composites increase firstly and then decrease with the rising temperature. When the sinusoidal voltage of 0.1 Hz and −500 V-1 000 V is applied, the maximum longitudinal free strain values of the piezoelectric fiber composites with low glass transition temperature (
Tg) and high
Tg epoxy are 1 416×10
−6 and 1 060×10
−6 at 40℃, respectively. While the free strain value of the piezoelectric fiber composite with polyurethane reaches 2 361×10
−6 at 30℃, which is 66.7% and 122.7% higher than the formers, respectively. The longitudinal free strain values of the piezoelectric fiber composites both with low
Tg epoxy and polyurethane reduce about 27.5% as the temperature increases from −15℃ to 40℃. Although the longitudinal free strain of the piezoelectric fiber composite with high
Tg epoxy is small, its longitudinal free strain value at −15℃ is only 10.5% lower than that at 40℃, so this kind of composite possesses a high temperature stability in the range of −15-60℃.