No abstract

The present paper deals with the development of a finite element method for the free vibration analysis of smart laminated composite beams and plates. The structure consists of a laminated composite substrate to which are surface bonded or embedded a set of piezoelectric layers, one of which is a sensor while the others are actuators. The analysis considers the linear piezoelectric constitutive relations and the first order shear deformation behaviour. An eight noded quadratic isoparametric piezoelectric element is developed to discretize the analysis domain, and the same shape functions are used to describe the electrical field, the charge density, the structural geometry as well as the structural displacements. Numerical results are obtained to study the effects of (1) stacking sequences of the composite laminae and piezoelectric layers, (2) geometric boundary conditions and (3) application of electrical voltages on the free vibration frequencies.

The present paper deals with a finite element analysis procedure for smart laminated composite shells based on Reissner' s principle. Hermitian polynomials have been used for the development of curved surfaces and these permit the construction of any arbitrary shell geometry. The piezoelectric constitutive equations are incorporated in the shell structural constitutive equations. The finite element codes are accordingly developed and results are obtained for various composite laminated shell panels. A deflection control strategy is proposed based on pseudo-inversion and modified Lavenberg-Marquardt's optimization algorithms. A smart laminated beam is considered as a case study for evaluating the proposed deflection control strategy. Results are obtained for various locations of the piezoelectric patches and it is observed that the strategy can be effectively used for the deflection control of a beam. The method so developed may also be applied to any piezo-laminated plate or shell configuration.