Development of a three-dimensional piezoelectric isogeometric finite element for smart structure applications

Abstract

In this paper, a 3D electromechanical-coupled isogeometric finite element is presented. An important advantage of such elements is the possibility to incorporate geometrical data of computer-aided design systems into the description of the finite element models. In this work, the isogeometric approach is extended to a coupled electromechanical finite element with mechanical and electrical degrees of freedom. The proposed piezoelectric finite element is based on nonuniform rational B-spline shape functions. In order to demonstrate the functionality and the advantages of the isogeometric piezoelectric element for smart structure and structural health monitoring applications, various examples are presented. The results obtained with isogeometric elements agree very well with analytical and numerical reference solutions. It is shown that the better geometrical approximation introduced by isogeometric elements results in an improvement of the solution quality.