A novel L-shaped linear ultrasonic motor operating in a single resonance mode

In this study, a large thrust linear ultrasonic motor using an L-shaped stator is described. The stator is constructed by two mutually perpendicular rectangular plate vibrators, one of which is mounted in parallel with the slider to make the motor structure to be more compact. The symmetric and antisymmetric modes of the stator based on the first order bending vibration of two vibrators are adopted, in which each resonance mode is assigned to drive the slider in one direction. The placement of piezoelectric ceramics in a stator could be determined by finite element analysis, and the influence of slots in the head block on the vibration amplitudes of driving foot was studied as well. Three types of prototypes (non-slotted, dual-slot, and single-slot) were fabricated and experimentally investigated. Experimental results demonstrated that the prototype with one slot exhibited the best mechanical output performance. The maximum loads under the excitation of symmetric mode and antisymmetric mode were 65 and 90 N, respectively.