Axisymmetric vibration of multilayered electroactive circular plates in contact with fluid

Abstract

Soft electroactive materials (SEAMs), which possess significant advantages over conventional hard materials, have attracted great attention in recent years. They have been widely used in automotive, aerospace, and biomedical industries, where they frequently come into contact with fluid. However, few analytical studies on the SEAM structures interacting with fluid have been reported. Based on the nonlinear electroelasticity and its relevant incremental theory, this paper investigates the linearized axisymmetric vibration of SEAM plates in contact with a fluid medium and subjected to electromechanical biasing fields. The state-space method and Hankel transform technique are adopted to solve the fully coupled partial differential equations. The numerical examples of a homogeneous plate, a two-layer plate, and a functionally graded plate are considered. We find various interesting phenomena and results, such as the complex competition mechanism, the difference between dry and wet high-order modes, and the influence of electromechanical biasing fields, fluid, and material heterogeneity on the natural frequency and buckling threshold. Our numerical findings provide helpful guidance for the design of dynamic devices made of SEAMs working in a fluid environment.