Static experimentations of the piezoceramic d₁₅-shear actuation mechanism for sandwich structures with opposite or same poled patches-assembled core and composite faces

Static d15-shear actuated smart composites consisting of glass fiber/epoxy layers sandwiching piezoceramic shear patches-assembled cores were investigated experimentally and numerically. The piezoceramic cores were formed by connecting two or three patches with the same or opposite polarization directions. For each cantilevered benchmark the shear-induced transverse tip deflection, under increasing actuation voltage, ranging from 61.5 V to 198 V, was measured by an electronic speckle pattern interferometer system. The performance of the shear actuated smart composites was characterized by their shear-induced transverse deflection per length per voltage. It was found that this performance is much better at high voltages for which the response becomes nonlinear. For verification of the experimental results the proposed benchmarks were simulated within ABAQUS® commercial code using three-dimensional piezoelectric finite elements. The comparison of the obtained experimental and simulation results show a nonlinear dependence of the transverse deflection for voltages higher than around 92 V.