Active constrained layer damping of geometrically nonlinear vibrations of smart laminated composite sandwich plates using 1–3 piezoelectric composites

This paper deals with the analysis of active constrained layer damping (ACLD) of geometrically nonlinear vibrations of sandwich plate with orthotropic laminated composite faces separated by a flexible core. The constraining layer of the ACLD treatment is composed of the vertically/obliquely reinforced 1?C3 piezoelectric composites. The Golla?CHughes?CMcTavish method has been implemented to model the constrained viscoelastic layer of the ACLD treatment in time domain. The first-order shear deformation theory and the Von Kármán type nonlinear strain displacement relations are used for analyzing this coupled electro-elastic problem. A three dimensional finite element model of smart laminated composite sandwich plate integrated with ACLD patches has been developed to investigate the performance of these patches for controlling the geometrically nonlinear vibrations of the plates. The numerical results indicate that the ACLD patches significantly improve the damping characteristics of the sandwich plates with laminated cross-ply and angle-ply facings for suppressing their geometrically nonlinear vibrations. Particular emphasis has been placed on investigating the effect of the variation of piezoelectric fiber orientation angle on the performance of the ACLD treatment.