Smart Control of Nonlinear Vibrations of Laminated Plates Using Active Fiber Composites

This paper deals with the geometrically nonlinear dynamic analysis of smart laminated composite plates integrated with the patches of active constrained layer damping (ACLD) treatment. The constraining layer of the ACLD treatment is made of active fiber composite (AFC) materials. The Von Kármán type nonlinear strain–displacement relations and the first_order shear deformation theory (FSDT) are adopted in deriving the coupled electromechanical nonlinear finite element (FE) model. The Golla–Hughes–McTavish (GHM) method is implemented to model the constrained viscoelastic layer of the ACLD treatment in time domain. Symmetric/antisymmetric cross-ply and antisymmetric angle-ply laminated substrate plates are considered in the numerical analyses. The results indicate that the ACLD patches significantly improve the damping characteristics of the plates for suppressing the geometrically nonlinear transient vibrations of the plates. The effects of variation of piezoelectric fiber orientation in the AFC constraining layer on the control authority of the ACLD patches have also been investigated.