Adaptive shape control of laminated composite plates using piezoelectric materials

Shape control of laminated composite plates with integrated piezoelectric actuators is discussed. The effectiveness of piezoelectric actuators and position sensors is investigated for shape control under the influence of quasistatically varying unknown loads. The shape control problem is divided into two parts. 1) For the desired shape function, calculate initial actuator input voltages such that a measure of the mean-squared error between the desired and the achieved shape is minimized. 2) An adaptive feedback algorithm is developed so as to minimize the distortion in the shape introduced by the quasistatically varying loads on the structure. A finite element model based on the shear deformation theory is used to verify the performance of the shape control methodologies.