Aspects of Modeling Piezoelectric Active Thin-walled Structures

The objective of this article is to reconsider some important aspects of modeling piezoelectric active thin-walled structures. Hence, it is dealt here with thin-walled laminated structures involving piezoelectric patches. A recently developed shell type finite element is used for the purpose. The first aspect is adequate modeling of electric field within the piezoelectric patches polarized in the thickness direction. The influence of higher order functions for the electric field on the accuracy of the model is discussed. The second aspect is related to modeling geometrical non-linearities in the behavior of the considered structures and their significance on the accuracy of the predicted behavior. Both aspects are considered with respect to static and dynamic cases.