Static and dynamic FE analysis of piezolaminated composite shells considering electric field nonlinearity under thermo-electro-mechanical loads

Abstract

The present article focuses on the static and dynamic finite element simulations of smart piezolaminated composite shell structures considering strong electric field nonlinearity under thermo-electro-mechanical loads. To model the electromechanical behaviour of piezoelectric patches or layers under large applied electric fields more efficiently, two-way coupled rotationally invariant second-order nonlinear constitutive relations are used in the variational principle approach. Furthermore, the nonlinear piezoelectric element formulations are further extended to capture the response under temperature gradients. Quadratic and cubic polynomial approximations are deemed to represent the electric potential and temperature fields, respectively. Validation of the present element formulation has been done in comparison to experimental and numerical investigations of those available in the literature. Moreover, numerical simulations are performed to study the large electric field nonlinearities of piezolaminated structures in static and dynamic as well as active vibration control problems under both mechanical and thermal loads. The numerical simulations have shown that using the piezoelectric nonlinearity, both the static shape control and vibration suppression either under mechanical or thermal loads can be accomplished at much lower actuation voltages than estimated by the linear model.