An experimental benchmark and its three-dimensional finite element (FE) simulation are presented for free vibration and effective electromechanical coupling of thick smart beams and plates bonded symmetrically on their upper/lower surfaces with a single pair of large piezoceramic patches. The so-called modal effective electromechanical coupling coefficient, which is post-processed from free-vibration analyses under short-circuit and open-circuit electrodes, is proposed as a unified free-vibration benchmarking comparator. For this purpose, the tests are numerically modeled, analyzed, and correlated using the commercial ANSYS® FE code. Realistic and desirable features were considered; they concern electrode equipotentiality, piezoceramic patches poling orientations (here opposite), and an FE model electromechanical updating. The original experimental benchmark and its refined modeling and simulation outcomes could be of major interest to smart materials and structures practitioners and researchers.

New laboratory tests are presented for the experimental evaluation and assessment of the piezoceramic shunted damping (PSD) concept for cantilever Aluminium thin (long) beams bonded symmetrically on their upper/lower surfaces with single pairs of small piezoceramic patches. Following these tests outcome, the PSD efficiency measure is proposed to be the so-called modal effective electromechanical coupling coefficient, which is post-processed from free-vibrations analyses under short-circuit and open-circuit electrodes of the patches. For this purpose, the tests are numerically modelled, analysed, and correlated using ABAQUS r commercial finite element (FE) code. Good tests/models correlations were reached after FE models electromechanical updating. This is attributed to the refined FE models in the sense that they have considered realistic and desirable features such as, electrodes equipotentiality, piezoceramic patches poling orientations (same/opposite), and the corresponding (parallel/series) electric wiring (connections).