Analysis of a sandwich plate containing a piezoelectric core

A sandwich plate with a piezoelectric core is constructed using the shear mode of piezoelectric materials. The Raleigh-Ritz formulation for the proposed plate is developed based on the principle of stationary potential energy. An approximate solution for a clamped-clamped-free-free square sandwich plate is obtained based on the Raleigh-Ritz formulation. Computationally efficient finite element models for a clamped-clamped-free-free and a cantilever sandwich plate are developed. The solutions of the Raleigh-Ritz formulation are compared with those of finite element analysis. IL is shown that the Raleigh-Ritz formulation is applicable to the proposed adaptive sandwich plate.