A new electro-mechanical finite formulation for functionally graded graphene reinforced composite laminated thick plates with piezoelectric actuator

Abstract

Graphene is regarded as one of the most attractive reinforcements for composite materials attributing to the extraordinary physical characteristics. However, existing models in the literatures might meet severe challenges for the interlaminar stress prediction of functionally graded graphene reinforced composite (FG-GRC) laminated thick plate integrated with piezoelectric fiber reinforced composite (PFRC) actuator under electro-mechanical loadings. If transverse shear deformations cannot be described accurately, the mechanical performance of FG-GRC laminated plate with PFRC actuator will be significantly impacted by the electro-mechanical coupling effect and the sudden change of material characteristics at the interfaces. Thereby, a new electro-mechanical coupled plate model with only seven independent displacement variables is to be proposed in this paper. Employing the Reissner mixed variational theorem (RMVT), the precision of the transverse shear stresses considering the electro-mechanical coupling effect can be improved. Moreover, the second-order derivatives of in-plane displacement parameters have been removed from the transverse shear stress components, which can greatly simplify the finite element formulation. Thus, based on the proposed electro-mechanical coupled plate model, a simple C0-type finite element formulation is developed for interlaminar shear stress analysis of FG-GRC laminated thick plate with a PFRC actuator. The 3D elasticity solutions and the results obtained from other models are used to assess the performance of the proposed finite element formulation. Additionally, comprehensive parametric studies are achieved for the influences of graphene volume fraction, distribution pattern, electro-mechanical loading, boundary conditions, lamination scheme and geometrical parameters of the plate on the deformations and stresses of the FG-GRC laminated plate with a PFRC actuator.