Study of the influence of leakage fields on the inchworm actuator

In this paper, we study the design parameters and especially the influence of leakage electric fields on the performance of a piezoelectric inchworm actuator. We consider the total deformation of the actuator and the first piezoelectric element capacitance as a good indication of the leakage fields produced in the insulators. Particularly, we study the effect of the thickness of insulating disks that separate the piezoelectric elements and the effect of the state of central element electrodes when unexcited. The result of a coupled electromechanical modeling is that the leakage field does not have an important effect for this device geometry.