A refined hybrid plate theory for composite laminates with piezoelectric laminae (Q675560)

A refined theory of laminated composite plates with piezoelectric laminae is developed. The equations of motion are derived using an energy principle. This formulation is based on linear piezoelectricity, and includes the coupling between mechanical deformations and the charge equations of electrostatics. The theory developed herein is hybrid in the sense that an equivalent single-layer theory is used for the mechanical displacement field, whereas the potential function for piezoelectric laminae is modeled using a layerwise discretization in the thickness direction.