Investigation of the Optimum Design for a 10 W Step-down 3-layer Piezoelectric Transformer

This paper presents the electrical properties of a step-down multilayer piezoelectric transformer with square shape fabricated with a piezoelectric ceramic. ATILA, a modeling program, was used to simulate the piezoelectric transformer, and its results were compared to these of practical experiment. A 3D model with the size corresponding to the experiment was created in the ATILA program. Simulated parameters, including the excitation voltage, material factors, polarization, and boundary conditions, and two types of analyses (modal and harmonic) were used to present and calculate the property of piezoelectric transformer. The frequency dependence of the step-down ratio and the input voltage dependence of power properties in the simulation were similar to the experiment results. Through a comparison with experiment, the potential profile in the model is described visually for different loads and frequencies. A power of 10 W was achieved at load of 100 Omega and an input voltage of 60 V, for which the temperature rise was less than 20 degrees C.