Post-Buckling of Piezoelectric Thin Plates

In the present paper, the geometrically nonlinear behavior of piezoelastic thin plates is studied. First, the governing equations for the electromechanically coupled problem are derived based on the von Karman–Tsien kinematic assumption. Here, the Berger approximation is extended to the coupled piezoelastic problem. The general equations are then reduced to a single nonlinear partial differential equation for the special case of simply supported polygonal edges. The nonlinear equations are approximated by using a problem-oriented Ritz Ansatz in combination with a Galerkin procedure. Based on the resulting equations the buckling and post-buckling behavior of a polygonal simply supported plate is studied in a nondimensional form, where the special geometry of the polygonal plate enters via the eigenvalues of a Helmholtz problem with Dirichlet boundary conditions. Single term as well as multi-term solutions are discussed including the effects of piezoelectric actuation and transverse force loadings upon the solution. Novel results concerning the buckling, snap through and snap buckling behavior are presented.