Modeling and Validation of Induced Strain Actuation of Composite Coupled Plates

Abstract

A consistent plate finite element model is formulated for coupled composite plates with induced strain actuation and validated with test data obtained from cantilevered isotropic and anisotropic plates. Actuators are modeled as additional plies fully integrated into substrate laminae, and the formulation is based on modified thin classical laminated-plate theory. The analysis is formulated for a generic anisotropic plate with a number of piezoactuators of arbitrary size, surface-bonded or embedded at arbitrary locations. Composite plates with extension-twist and bending-twist couplings were built and tested. Two rows of piezoceramic elements are surface mounted on both top and bottom surfaces near the root. Static tests are carried out using induced strain actuation, and mechanical loading and measured data are correlated with predictions for bending and twist distributions. For an extension-twist coupled plate, the agreement between predicted and measured induced twist due to extensional strain with piezoactuation is excellent. For the strongly bending-twist coupled composite plate, the predicted induced twist due to bending strain with piezoactuation agreed well in trends, but magnitudes were underpredicted by a maximum of 20% from measured values. For the weakly bending-twist coupled composite plate, the predicted induced-twist angle agreed extremely well with measured data. The modeling and validation results show the usability of the piezoactuation in the field of plate shape control.