Active vibration control of smart composite structures in hygrothermal environment

Abstract

The composite materials may be exposed to environmental (thermal or hygral or both) condition during their service life. The effect of environmental condition is usually adverse from the point of view of design of composite structures. In the present research study the effect of hygrothermal condition on the design of laminated composite structures is investigated. The active fiber composite (AFC) which may be utilized as actuator or sensor is considered in the present analysis. The sensor layer is used to sense the level of response of the composite structures. The sensed voltage is fed back to the actuator through the controller. In this study both displacement and velocity feedback controllers are employed to reduce the response of the composite laminate within acceptable limit. The Newmark direct time integration scheme is employed along with modal superposition method to improve the computational efficiency. It is observed from the numerical study that the laminated composite structures become weak in the presence of hygrothermal load. The response of the structure can be brought to the acceptable level once the AFC layer is activated through the feedback loop.