International Journal for Multiscale Computational Engineering

ISSN for PRINT: 1543-1649

For Online Access

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2004, Volume2

Issue 1

172 pages

DOI: 10.1615/IntJMultCompEng.v2.i1

Issue price - $178.00

A. L. Kalamkarov
Mechanical Engineering Department, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3J 2X4, Canada

A. V. Georgiades
Mechanical Engineering Department, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3J 2X4, Canada

Asymptotic homogenization models for smart composite plates with rapidly varying thickness and periodically arranged actuators are derived. The effective elastic, actuation, thermal expansion, and hygroscopic expansion coefficients are obtained. The actuation coefficients characterize the intrinsic transducer nature of active smart materials that can be used to induce strains and stresses in a coordinated fashion. Examples of such actuators employed with smart composite material systems are derived from piezoelectric, magnetostrictive, and some other materials. It is shown that the original problem for the regularly non-homogeneous smart composite plate with rapidly oscillating thickness reduces to a system of eight simpler types of problem. It is precisely these "unit-cell" problems that enable the determination of the aforementioned effective coefficients and subsequently the strain and stress fields. In the limiting case of a thin elastic plate of uniform thickness the derived model is shown to converge to the familiar classical plate model. In Part II of this work, the theory is illustrated by means of examples pertaining to a thin smart laminated plate of uniform thickness and a wafer-type smart composite plate reinforced with smart ribs oriented along the tangential directions of the plate.

DOI: 10.1615/IntJMultCompEng.v2.i1.90 Download article, 16 pages

Article price - $35.00

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