Distributed transfer function-based unified static solutions for piezoelectric short/open-circuit sensing and voltage/charge actuation of beam cantilevers (Q2234150)

Extending own earlier work on vibration analysis of asymmetric and symmetric beam cantilevers, the authors present new closed-form unified solutions to four static problems using the distributed transfer functions (DTFs) method for the static short/open-circuit sensing and on voltage/charge actuation of moderately thick beam cantilevers with surface-bonded piezoelectric patches. The theoretical formulation is based on Timoshenko's first-order shear deformation theory for the kinematics and piezoelectric constitutive equations and the principle of virtual work extended to piezoelectricity for the variational equations. For this purpose, the smart beam is divided into three segments, of which the clamped and free sides parts are elastic, while the middle one is made of an elastic core sandwiched between two electroded piezoelectric patches. The latter can be different in material properties and thickness but should have the same length, and their widths can be different from the host elastic beam. The balance equations and boundary conditions are derived for the three segments independently and then connected at their interfaces by the equilibrium equations and continuity conditions. The unified static solutions for the resulting four problems are derived analytically. They can support various reduced piezoelectric constitutive equations and satisfy automatically the physical equipotential constraints on the piezoelectric patch/layer electrodes. The results are validated against the existing literature on practical configurations of beam cantilevers with different widths of patches, and very good correlations are obtained compared with the known two-dimensional (2D) plane strain/stress analytical and 2D plane strain/stress and three-dimensional finite element results. The authors point out several possible extensions of the present work. Conclusions and perspectives of the present work are provided.