Nonlinear finite element analysis of smart laminated composite sandwich plates

This paper deals with the nonlinear dynamic analysis of smart laminated composite sandwich plates. A three dimensional energy based finite element (FE) model has been developed for the composite sandwich plates integrated with the patches of active constrained layer damping (ACLD) treatment. Von Kármán type nonlinear strain–displacement relations and the first_order shear deformation theory (FSDT) are adopted individually for each layer of the sandwich plate in developing the FE model. The constraining layer of the ACLD treatment is considered to be made of active fiber composite (AFC) material. The Golla–Hughes–McTavish (GHM) method is used to model the constrained viscoelastic layer of the ACLD treatment in the time domain. Sandwich plates with symmetric and antisymmetric laminated faces separated by HEREX core are considered for evaluation of the numerical results. The numerical results indicate that the ACLD patches significantly improve the damping characteristics of the composite sandwich plates for suppressing their geometrically nonlinear transient vibrations. The effect of variation of piezoelectric fiber orientation angle in the AFC material on the control authority of the ACLD patches is also investigated.