Momentum - The Magazine for Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering Vol. 4 No. 1 Spring 2019 | Page 15

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3D printing of
piezoelectrics
an industry
game-changer
The piezoelectric materials that inhabit everything from our cell phones to musical
greeting cards may be getting an upgrade thanks to work discussed in the journal Na-
ture Materials released online Jan 21.
Xiaoyu ‘Rayne’ Zheng, assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the College of
Engineering, and a member of the Macromolecules Innovation Institute, and his team
have developed methods to 3D print piezoelectric materials that can be custom-designed
to convert movement, impact and stress from any direction to electrical energy.
“Piezoelectric materials convert strain and stress into electric charges,” Zheng
explained.
The piezoelectric materials come in only a few defined shapes and are made of brittle
crystal and ceramic – the kind that require a clean room to manufacture. Zheng’s team
has developed a technique to 3D print these materials so they are not restricted by shape
or size. The material can also be activated – providing the next generation of intelligent
infrastructures and smart materials for tactile sensing, impact and vibration monitor-
ing, energy harvesting, and other applications.
Unleash the freedom to design piezoelectrics
Piezoelectric materials were originally discovered in the 19th century. Since then the
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