Stress analyses of a smart composite pipe joint integrated with piezoelectric composite layers under torsion loading

In order to improve the joint failure strength, an adhesively bonded smart composite pipe joint system has been developed by integrating electromechanical coupling piezoelectric layers with the connection coupler. It has been validated that the integrated piezoelectric ceramic layers can smartly reduce stress concentration in the adhesive layer bond-line under bending or axial tension loads. In this study, piezoelectric particle/fiber reinforced polymer composite was utilized to construct adhesively bonded smart composite pipe joint systems, in order to overcome the brittle characteristic of the piezoelectric ceramic layers and to facilitate joint construction. Since torsion is one of the dominating loading conditions in practice, the behavior of the newly developed smart pipe joint system subjected to torsion loading was investigated in-detail to evaluate the effect of the integrated piezoelectric reinforced polymer composite layer on the joint performance. Firstly, based on the first-order shear deformation theory, the fundamental equations with relevant boundary and continuity conditions were developed to theoretically model the smart pipe joint system subjected to torsion loading. Further, the analytical solutions for the mid-plane displacements and the shear and peel stresses in the adhesive layer were obtained by using the Levy solution and the state-space method. Finally, some numerical examples were presented to evaluate the detailed effect of the stacking sequence and thickness of the integrated composite piezoelectric layers in the connection coupler on reducing the stress concentration in the adhesive layer; the effect of the applied electric fields on shear and peel stresses in the adhesive layer was also illustrated.