Forced Vibration Responses of Smart Composite Plates using Trigonometric Zigzag Theory

The Trigonometric Zigzag theory is utilized in this research for analytically evaluating the forced vibration responses of smart multilayered laminated composite plates with piezoelectric actuators and sensors. This theory, as the name suggests, incorporates a trigonometric function, namely the secant function for describing the nonlinear behavior of transverse shear stresses through the thickness of the smart composite plates. The kinematics for the in-plane displacement components are obtained by superposing a globally varying nonlinear field through the thickness of the plate structure on a piecewise linearly varying zigzag field with slope discontinuities at the layer interfaces. The model also satisfies the inter-laminar continuity conditions of tractions at the interfaces of the multilayered plate. The equations of motion are derived using Hamilton’s principle, and the separation of the variables technique is extended to assume the solutions for the primary variables in space and time and solved analytically using Navier’s solution technique along with Newmark’s time integration scheme. A detailed analytical investigation of the dynamic behavior of the smart laminated plate coupled with piezoelectric materials like PVDF and piezoelectric fiber-reinforced composite (PFRC) is carried out by considering several forms of the time-dependent electromechanical excitations and also covering different geometrical and material features of the smart plate structure. The responses are found to be in close agreement with the elasticity solutions and some new results are also presented to show the dynamic controlling capacity of the piezoelectric layers.