A new bending mode multimorph actuator was designed and fabricated successfully by a multiple screen printing process. Unlike the conventional bimorph actuator in which the bend occurs in the thickness direction, the bend in the multimorph actuator occurs in the widthwise direction because of synchronistical deformation of each single monolithic layer in the multilayer structure. The theoretical analysis and experimental measurements were conducted to study the performance of this type of actuator, and a comparison was made with the conventional bimorph actuator. Larger displacement, higher resonance frequency, and much larger blocking force could be achieved with the multimorph actuator than with a bimorph actuator of similar dimensions. The multimorph actuator presented in this paper provides a valuable alternative for actuator applications beyond those available with the popular bimorph and longitudinal multilayer actuators.
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