A comprehensive study on smart beams with piezoelectric elements using an impedance matrix and the inverse Laplace transform is presented. Based on the authors’ previous work, the dynamics of some elements in beam-like smart structures are represented by impedance matrix equations, including a piezoelectric stack, a piezoelectric bimorph, an elastic straight beam or a circular curved beam. A further transform is applied to the impedance matrix to obtain a set of implicit transfer function matrices. Apart from the analytical solutions to the matrices of smart beams, one computation procedure is proposed to obtained the impedance matrices and transfer function matrices using FEA. By these means the dynamic solution of the elements in the frequency domain is transformed to that in Laplacian s-domain and then inversely transformed to time domain. The connections between the elements and boundary conditions of the smart structures are investigated in detail, and one integrated system equation is finally obtained using the symbolic operation of TF matrices. A procedure is proposed for dynamic analysis and control analysis of the smart beam system using mode superposition and a numerical inverse Laplace transform. The first example is given to demonstrate building transfer function associated impedance matrices using both FEA and analytical solutions. The second example is to verify the ability of control analysis using a suspended beam with PZT patches under close-loop control. The third example is designed for dynamic analysis of beams with a piezoelectric stack and a piezoelectric bimorph under various excitations. The last example of one smart beam with a PPF controller shows the applicability to the control analysis of complex systems using the proposed method. All results show good agreement with the other results in the previous literature. The advantages of the proposed methods are also discussed at the end of this paper.
