Analysis of hybrid multilayered piezoelectric plates

A first-order shear deformation theory is presented for studying the fully coupled response characteristics of hybrid composite and piezoelectric plates. The plates consist of a combination of fiber-reinforced composite laminates and piezoelectric layers and the response quantities of the plates are coupled by the mechanical field and the electric field. The theory, based on the three-dimensional linear piezoelectricity, assumes that the fundamental unknowns such as the displacement components and the electric potential can be expanded through the plate thickness coordinate. The governing equations are obtained in terms of the displacement and electric potential coefficients. Numerical studies of single piezoelectric layer plate and a nine-layered hybrid plate show that the proposed method is accurate to predict the response quantities for both mechanical and electric loading cases.