Improvement of the standard characterization method on k33 mode piezoelectric specimens

[Display omitted] •The issues of IEEE Standard k33 Mode Piezoelectric specimen has been specifically identified.•In order to resolve such issues, partial electrode (PE) method is introduced.•By utilizing analytical solutions, parameters are determined with curve fitting.•The parameters determined from PE method have significantly smaller errors compared to standard method. Even though standard method to determine physical parameters of piezoelectric materials has been set up for several decades, bare attention has been made on loss determination method. Furthermore, several deficits have been recognized in the standard method for k33 mode. In this study, detailed discussion on deficits of IEEE Standard k33 is investigated and the method to resolve such deficits will be introduced. The standard k33 specimen suffers from small capacitance, which causes huge experimental error, intrinsic electrical energy leakage, specimen setup issue and inability to directly determine “intensive” elastic properties. In order to resolve these issues, partial electrode method was introduced, and curve fitting was demonstrated to determine physical parameters and losses.