Product Development and Innovation in the Textile and

Clothing Industry

PIEZOELECTRIC MATERIAL AND THEIR

APPLICATIONS

Prepared by: Zeeshan Ali

Submitted To: Prof. Heikki Mattila

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Product Development and Innovation in the Textile and
Clothing Industry

Index

Contents
1 Abstract.............................................................................................................. 3
2 Findings.............................................................................................................. 3
3 Research Limitations ........................................................................................3
4 INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................4
4.1 HISTORY........................................................................................................4
4.2 TODAYS WORK..............................................................................................4
5 DEFINITION......................................................................................................... 4
Piezoelectric effect............................................................................................4
5.1 Piezoelectric materials;................................................................................5
5.2 PIEZOELECTRIC MATERIAL AND THEIR PROPERTIES. ...................................7
6 APPLICATION OF PIEZOELECTRIC MATERIAL ......................................................7
6.1 Sensors......................................................................................................... 8
6.2 Actuator........................................................................................................8
6.3 Generator..................................................................................................... 8
6.4 Transducer ...................................................................................................8
7 Conclusion.......................................................................................................... 9

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Product Development and Innovation in the Textile and
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1 Abstract

Globalization in the today’s volatile market requires massive innovative ideas to cope with
the unpredictable demands from the customer. However, most of the companies are striving
hard to fulfil their customer demands by developing new products i.e Smart Textiles.

The purpose of this report is to get better understanding of the desirable characteristics of
piezoelectric materials for wearable e-textiles, including shape sensing, sound detection, and
sound emission.

During the last decades, piezoelectric material made huge progress in entering commercial
mass market throughout all branches, where piezoelectric are used as the basic material for
actuators as well as sensors. We have discussed the generation of ultrasound and sonar wave
by piezoelectric material, we have also discuss the application of transducer by producing
sound.

2 Findings
By this report we are able to find out that piezoelectric material has wide range of
applications. It can be used as a generator, sensor, actuator and transducer.

3 Research Limitations

The main limitation for this case study was the lack of availability of relevant data due to
very less time. We only get some from their web site and some from research papers, we
have also consult some books.

Key Words: piezoelectric, Smart Textile

Paper Type: REPORT

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Product Development and Innovation in the Textile and
Clothing Industry

4 INTRODUCTION

4.1 HISTORY

The application of piezoelectric material starts from the discovery of piezoelectric effect by
Curie brother in 1880-1881 and it expand over the years. An overview on the manifold
application is given in Lead- Zirconate-Titanate (PZT) ceramics, which were discovered in
1954 and replaced barium Titanate ceramics in all field of piezoelectric application, become
the material dominating the world market until today.
REF; 1

4.2 TODAYS WORK

Piezoelectric material has given the opportunity to design; wearable computing devices
provide computational capability and also function as the clothing being worn. i.e a jacket
used that can also monitoring a heartbeat. Electronic textiles (e-textiles), fabrics that contain
electronic or computational devices, are perfectly suited to creating these dual-role devices.
The primary challenge in electronic textiles is to find materials and devices that provide the
desired functionality and that can be easily meshed into hybrid materials. Piezoelectric
materials offer significant promise for e-textiles applications. Piezoelectric materials have a
number of useful features and are available in a variety of form factors with reasonable cost
and development complexity.

5 DEFINITION

Piezoelectric effect
“Piezoelectric effect is generated by piezoelectric material or ceramic, by applying
mechanical stress or force to produce electric field .If the material is not short circuited, the
applied stress induces a voltage across the material.”
Ref;2

Figure 1

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Product Development and Innovation in the Textile and
Clothing Industry

5.1 Piezoelectric materials;

At the time of discovery of piezoelectric effect by Curie brother in 1880 only use the natural
materials, such as quartz, tourmaline, topaz, and Rochelle salt ( sodiuam potassium titrate
tetrahydrate ) .Now a days, from all of these material only quartz is using commercially .
Gallium orthophosphate, ammonium di hyhrophosphate and lanthanum gallium are grown
artificially and they are also called single crystals.

After the continues development of single phase crystal is converted into piezoelectric
polycrystalline ceramics , which is mostly used now a days. This material has a extensive
range of characteristics. Perovskite structure is the largest group of ceramics of piezoelectric
materials, these are complex metals of with the general formula of ABO3. Here the A and B
are the cation sizes i.e A could be Na,K, Rb, Ca,Sr, Ba, and Pb ,and B includes Ti, ,Sn , Zr,
Nb and Tr.11

Figure 2

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Name Chemical Formula Uses and properties
Quartz SiO2 SiO2 Quartz is a very pure
crystal and
Product Development and Innovation in the Textile and contains
only traces of other
Clothing Industry elements. Natural
quartz contain:

Al3+: 13 to 15,000
ppm, usually only 100
ppm
Fe3+:
Ti4+:
P5+:
H+:
Li+:
Na+: 9 to 1400 ppm
K+: 3 to 300 ppm

Density: 2.65 g/cm3

Mineral class:
Oxides/hydroxides

Electric polarization is
produced after
applying pressure
along the direction of
the pressure

Aluminum AlPO4 Density: 2560

orthophosphate - kg/m³Mol mass:
Berlinite - 121,95 g/mol

Gallium GaPO4 Gallium

orthophosphate orthophosphate
(GaPO4) is a colorless
crystal crystallizing in
a trigonal crystal
system. Similar to
quartz due to the fact
that the silicon atoms
are replaced
alternating by gallium
and phosphor.
Therefore this crystal
has almost the same
characteristics,
however it has twice
its piezoelectricity,
which is an interesting
advantage especially
in mechanical
applications.

Tourmaline Na(Al,Fe,Li,Mg,Mn)M3Al(Si6O18) : Alumina borosilicate

6 (BO3)3(OH,F)4 with fluorine.

Color: commonly
black but can range
from violet to green
and pink.
Product Development and Innovation in the Textile and
Clothing Industry

5.2 PIEZOELECTRIC MATERIAL AND THEIR PROPERTIES.

Table 1

Ref ;3

6 APPLICATION OF PIEZOELECTRIC MATERIAL

Piezoelectric material has a wide range of application as its convert’s

mechanical energy to electric energy or vice versa. Piezoelectric material
dominates in sensors and actuators with various electromechanical
parts. . So there are four general categories generators, sensors,
actuators, and transducers. Characteristics of each group are briefly
summarized here.

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Product Development and Innovation in the Textile and
Clothing Industry
Figure 3

6.1 Sensors
The piezoelectric effects are also used as physical quantities in sensors
i.e (pressure, force, acceleration and side impact) and in microphones,
ultrasonic sensors, hydrophones, seismic sensor, acoustic pickups and
many other devices Actuator. The practical example of sensor is that, the
seat belts for a car is tight with the sudden deceleration.

6.2 Actuator
Loud speakers, piezoelectric motor and high precious micro actuators are
the most renowned application of piezoelectric material .High precious
actuators are applied to those material where less amount of voltage to
cause small amount of change, due to this property, it is widely used on
various operation where we need full control over the position and the
displacement of parts and elements, one of its example is the Head of the
Inkjet printer.

6.3 Generator
Piezoelectric material has make revolution in the field of ultrasonic
generators’, unlike others, it generates significant amount of ultrasound,
with controlled power and frequency. The ultrasonic pressure wave is
produced by the contraction and expansion of the piezoelectric material
by the application of voltage.

It is practically implemented in 1915, in the First World War, when this

technology was first use to detect submarines. It is also used in
ultrasonography , a technique for visualizing internal tissues and organs
i.e embryo, which become a standard for parental care .

6.4 Transducer
It is one of the applications of piezoelectric material in which the electric
signals are converted into vibrational mechanical energy, sound or
ultrasound. It can produce high level of sound with minimum amount of
energy, so application is also suited for battery use.Piezoelectric
transducers also are used to generate ultrasonic vibrations for cleaning,

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Product Development and Innovation in the Textile and
Clothing Industry

atomizing liquids, drilling or milling ceramics or other difficult materials,

welding plastics, medical diagnostics, or for other purposes.

REF; 4

7 Conclusion

Piezoelectric materials provide a set of functions and characteristics unmatched by other

currently available e-textile materials. It is covering the full range of applications medical,
military, textiles etc .It provides a modernized vision of future products. This makes
piezoelectric material not only valuable to the wearable computing community but also
demonstrates a need for increased consideration concerning their use and investigation.

There are different considerations for different type of applications of piezoelectric material
so need arises to standardise the basic requirement for each application. In this regards
research should conducted more and more to take full advantage of the piezoelectric material
end use applications.Extensive awareness should be created among the people about the
application.

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i

1.REF: 1 http://www.piezo.com/tech4history.html

2.REF:2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectricity

ii
3. REF: 3 http://www.piezomaterials.com/suppliers.htm

Physics Today, volume 58, 8, p 33, August 20

4. REF: 4 Hand book of Piezoelectric Theory and Applications