On the Use of Vertically Reinforced 1-3 Piezoelectric Composites for Hybrid Damping of Laminated Composite Plates

Abstract

This paper deals with the analysis of vertically reinforced 1-3 piezoelectric composite materials as the material for the distributed actuator of smart laminated composite plates. A simple micromechanics model has been derived to predict the effective elastic and piezoelectric coefficients of these piezoelectric composites which are useful for the three dimensional analysis of smart structures. The main concern of this study is to investigate the performance of a layer of this vertically reinforced 1-3 piezoelectric composite material as the constraining layer of the active constrained layer damping (ACLD) treatment. A finite element model has been developed for analyzing the active constrained layer damping of laminated symmetric and antisymmetric cross-ply and angle-ply composite plates integrated with the patches of such ACLD treatment. Both in-plane and out-of-plane actuation of the constraining layer of the ACLD treatment have been utilized for deriving the finite element model. The analysis revealed that the vertical actuation dominates over the in-plane actuation. Particular emphasis has been placed on investigating the performance of the patches when the orientation angle of the piezoelectric fibers of the constraining layer is varied in the two mutually orthogonal vertical planes. Also, the effect of different boundary conditions on the performance of the patches has been studied. The analysis revealed that the vertically reinforced 1-3 piezoelectric composites which are in general being used for the distributed sensors can be potentially used for the distributed actuators of high performance light-weight smart structures.