A fully-coupled nonlinear thermoelectromechanical model for piezolaminated smart structures

In present engineering applications piezoelectric materials gain increasing importance in the development of smart structures; e.g., for shape and vibration control problems. Such structures exhibit a three-way coupling effect between the mechanical, electrical and thermal quantities. In the majority of papers available in literature this coupling is taken into account only in the constitutive equations. It is however well known that truly coupled analysis should also be based on the interaction of the mechanical, thermal and electrostatic quantities in the field equations. Only in this way many physical effects can be taken into account; e.g., the strain rate dependant change of temperature due to mechanical loading. Furthermore most of the analyses conducted in this area are performed in the linear range of deformations assuming small strains, rotations and temperature changes. However smart technology is generally applied to thin walled structures and in many cases reported in literature the deflections are much larger than the thickness, which results into geometrically nonlinear behaviour, like e.g. the occurrence of stress stiffening which greatly affects the prediction of sensor voltage outputs. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)