An accurate laminated element for piezoelectric smart beams including peel stress

This paper presents a laminated element for piezoelectric (PZT) smart beams in taking into account peel stresses. In the finite element analysis (FEA) formulation, a coupled electrical and mechanical beam element is used to model PZT patches, and a conventional structural element is used to model a host beam. A continuous adhesive element with shear and peel stiffness is derived to form a PZT laminated element. For a smart beam with a partially bonded PZT patch or distributed PZTs, the laminated element is applied to an area of the host beam with PZTs and the conventional element is used in the host beam where no PZT is bonded. A novel PZT laminated element is firstly derived based on the Timoshenko beam theory, in which the FEA formulation based on the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory can be considered as its special case. FEA numerical results of static and dynamic analyses based on the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory are compared with the exact static and dynamic solutions to validate the present FEA formulation. The present FEA framework based on the Timoshenko beam theory is then used to investigate the effects of PZT debondings on static behaviors and dynamic responses, and an original and effective procedure for detecting debondings in PZT actuators or sensors is proposed.The authors are grateful to the support of the Australian Research Council through a Large Grant Scheme (Grant No. A10009074).