Analysis of laminated composite plates integrated with piezoelectric sensors and actuators using higher-order shear deformation theory and isogeometric finite elements

This paper presents a simple and effective formulation based on Isogeometric Analysis (IGA) and Higher-order Shear Deformation Theory (HSDT) to investigate static, free vibration and dynamic control of piezoelectric composite plates integrated with sensors and actuators. In the composite plates, the mechanical displacement field is approximated according to the HSDT model using isogeometric elements based on Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline (NURBS) basis functions. These achieve naturally any desired degree of continuity through the choice of the interpolation order, so that the method easily fulfills the C1-continuity requirement of the HSDT model. The electric potential is assumed to vary linearly through the thickness for each piezoelectric sublayer. A displacement and velocity feedback control algorithm is used for the active control of the static deflection and of the dynamic response of the plates through a closed-loop control with bonded or embedded distributed piezoelectric sensors and actuators. The accuracy and reliability of the proposed method is verified by comparing its numerical predictions with those of other available numerical approaches.