Actuation and Sensing of Soft Core Sandwich Plates with a Built-In Adaptive Layer

The present work presents experimental studies performed on soft core sandwich planar plates with a built-in adaptive layer. This adaptive layer consists of an aluminum plate equipped with piezoelectric ceramic transducers (PZT) bonded in pairs on its two faces. The PZT patches can sense deflections using the direct piezoelectric effect (producing charge under the application of stress) and can be also used as actuators to induce deflections to the structure, using the converse piezoelectric effect (inducing shear deformations to the host structure by its stretching or shrinkage under the application of voltage). This new configuration of the sandwich plate has the main advantage of protecting the brittle ceramic transducers by placing them inside the core. The outside sandwich faces then remain unobstructed. The usage of such planar sandwich plates is then discussed.