Systematic design of distributed piezoelectric modal sensors/actuators for rectangular plates by optimizing the polarization profile

Abstract

In this paper the problem of finding the shape of distributed piezoelectric modal sensors/actuators for plates with arbitrary boundary conditions is treated by an optimization approach. A binary function is used to model the design variable: the polarization profile of the piezoelectric layers. Contrary to what it could be expected, it is analytically proved that it is possible to find manufacturable polarization profiles taking on only two values, i.e. either positive or negative polarization. Several numerical examples are shown to corroborate that such topologies isolate particular vibration modes in the frequency domain.