Active damping enhancement of composite plates with electrode designed piezoelectric materials

The characteristics of the actuation effectiveness of piezo-laminated plates have been investigated. Finite element procedures based on the first order shear deformation theory have been developed. The actuation effectiveness of each portion of a piezoelectric material has been obtained. For a twisting mode, a large amount of cancel out effect is observed. The first order perturbation analysis shows that in case of direct negative velocity feedback, control performance increases when the cancel out effect decreases. A simple and effective electrode design method has been suggested with the idea of electrode shaping such as a combination of subareas without cancel out effects for the modes under consideration. In the present study, a cantilevered plate with piezoelectric polymer on both surfaces is considered. Best electrode shapes which have extremum values for each cost function are obtained.