Numerical characterizations of a piezoelectric micromotor using topology optimization design

This paper presents the optimum load-speed diagram evaluation for a linear micromotor, including multitude cantilever piezoelectric bimorphs, briefly. Each microbeam in the mechanism can be actuated in both axial and flexural modes simultaneously. For this design, we consider quasi-static and linear conditions, and a relatively new numerical method called the smoothed finite element method (S-FEM) is introduced here. For this purpose, after finding an optimum volume fraction for piezoelectric layers through a standard numerical method such as quadratic finite element method, the relevant load-speed curves of the optimized micromotor are examined and compared by deterministic topology optimization (DTO) design. In this regard, to avoid the overly stiff behavior in FEM modeling, a numerical method known as the cell-based smoothed finite element method (CS-FEM, as a branch of S-FEM) is applied for our DTO problem. The topology optimization procedure to find the optimal design is implemented using a solid isotropic material with a penalization (SIMP) approximation and a method of moving asymptotes (MMA) optimizer. Because of the higher efficiency and accuracy of S-FEMs with respect to standard FEMs, the main micromotor characteristics of our final DTO design using a softer CS-FEM are substantially improved.