Passive control of damaged composite laminates with optimized location of piezoelectric fiber composite patches

This work presents a novel technique to enhance the bending, buckling, and post buckling characteristics of a damaged composite plate. This technique uses piezoelectric fiber composite patches (PFCP) for enhancing the performance and thereby reducing the effects of internal flaws. This paper discusses about the employment of PFCPs in their optimized location. Unified particle swarm optimization (UPSO) is employed for optimizing the PFCP locations for maximum critical buckling temperatures. An inverse hyperbolic shear deformation theory is used for advanced accuracy of the analysis of the smart plate. The post buckling behavior is studied with varying the number of optimally located PFCPs using modified Newton Raphson method. The obtained results are matched with those in the existing literature, wherever possible. It is observed that this is a very promising means of designing new smart material applications.