<title>Induced strain actuation on a beam structure subjected to external loads</title>

Abstract

In this paper, the refined model presented currently by the authors (Lin and Rogers, 1993a) for the induced-strain actuation mechanism of the actuators is extended to include external loads. The same stress field obtained for the actuation mechanism is used to model the external loading with different end traction condition and the solutions are superimposed to yield the complete solution for the combined loading condition. The results obtained from the current analysis agree very well with those obtained from the finite element model on the prediction of the effective force/moment induced on the substrate. The interfacial shear and peeling stresses are shown to be altered noticeably with the application of external loads, and the maximum interfacial shear and peeling-stress level appears to vary linearly with the external loads. The influence of the external bending moments on the optimum actuator-to-substructure thickness ratio that induced maximum bending curvature on the substrate is also discussed.