Stabilized plane and axisymmetric piezoelectric finite element models

This paper derives a four-node plane, a nine-node plane and a four-node axisymmetric stabilized elements for piezoelectric analysis. All elements are formulated by a stabilization approach founded on the generalized Hellinger-Reissner functional which employs stress, electric displacement, displacement and electric potential as the independent field variables. The lower and higher order stress and electric displacement are chosen to be orthogonal such that their coupling terms in the electromechanical flexibility matrices vanish. In the absence of the higher order modes, the elements are equivalent to their uniformly reduced integrated counterparts. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate that the stabilized elements are markedly more accurate than the standard fully integrated elements. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.