Dear Herman

My current company has dealed with PZT actuators in helicopter blades. I don't really know the acceleration. (about the speed, do you mean 40 000rpm or 40 000 round/s?)

You'll find some information at:

http://www.cedrat-technologies.com/en/publications/categories/domain/defence.html

http://www.cedrat-technologies.com/en/publications/categories/device-systems/energy-harvester.html

Best regards

PZTs generally have a highly non-linear behaviour including hysteresis, creep and structural vibration.

My assumption is that under high acceleration, the structural vibration would increase. To find an estimation, you could look at the natural vibration of the PZT. If it is smaller than the external vibration, definitely the structural vibration considerably increases the non-linear behaviour of the PZT. Cheers,N

You should also take into account, I think, the deformation of the PZT when some voltage is applied to them, even without any mechanical contact with the actuated parts. You might see for example "Optical metrology testing and numerical model validation of static deformations and stress concentrations of piezoelectric actuators", authors D. Borza, D. Lemosse, E. Pagnacco in Proceedings of IEEE-TTTC International Confer. AQTR 2006, pp. 121-126

Depending on the resonance frequency of the external force, the behaviour would be highly non-linear and, the hysteresis behaviour may be unpredictable if the driving frequency impinge the natural frequency of the PZT.