A refined finite element method for bending analysis of laminated plates integrated with piezoelectric fiber-reinforced composite actuators

摘要

This research presents a finite element formulation based on four-variable refined plate theory for bending analysis of cross-ply and angle-ply laminated composite plates integrated with a piezoelectric fiber-reinforced composite actuator under electromechanical loading.The four-variable refined plate theory is a simple and efficient higher-order shear deformation theory,which predicts parabolic variation of transverse shear stresses across the plate thickness and satisfies zero traction conditions on the plate free surfaces.The weak form of governing equations is derived using the principle of minimum potential energy,and a 4-node non-conforming rectangular plate element with 8 degrees of freedom per node is introduced for discretizing the domain.Several benchmark problems are solved by the developed MATLAB code and the obtained results are compared with those from exact and other numerical solutions,showing good agreement.