Dynamic buckling of imperfect laminated plates with piezoelectric sensors and actuators subjected to thermo-electro-mechanical loadings, considering the temperature-dependency of the material properties

Dynamic buckling of piezolaminated plates under thermo-electro-mechanical loads has not been investigated so far. In the present paper, effects of the thermo-piezoelasticity on the dynamic buckling under suddenly applied thermal and mechanical loads are investigated for imperfect rectangular composite plates with surface-bonded or embedded piezoelectric sensors and actuators. A finite element formulation based on a higher-order shear deformation theory is developed. Both the initial geometric imperfections of the plate and the temperature-dependency of the material properties are taken into account. Complex dynamic loading combinations include in-plane mechanical loads, heating, and electrical actuations are considered. A nine-node second order Lagrangian element, an efficient numerical algorithm for solving the resulted highly nonlinear governing equations, and an instability criterion already proposed by the author are employed. A simple negative proportional feedback control is used to actively control the transient response of the plate. Results show that buckling mitigation due to utilizing integrated piezoelectric sensors and actuators is mainly achieved in extremely high gain values. It is also noticed that in many cases, effects of the control voltage on the results may be ignored compared to the temperature-dependency of the material properties and initial geometric imperfections effects.