by: Wenxiang Ding, Maxime Bavencoffe and Marc Lethiecq
Abstract: The formulation for developing the dynamic stiffness matrix for a piezoelectric array element with arbitrary boundary conditions is presented in this paper. Gorman’s superposition method is innovatively utilized to obtain the solutions of the governing equations of motion for piezoelectric materials. Boundary conditions are satisfied in a strong form and Projection method is adopted for solving the spatial dependence. The results obtained for a piezoelectric array element operating as a transmitter and receiver are validated by the finite element method using COMSOL Multiphysics.
