ANISOTROPIC ACTUATION WITH PIEZOELECTRIC FIBER COMPOSITES

An investigation was made into the held of planar structural actuation with anisetropic active materials. The mechanisms for creating anisot ropic actuators were discussed, and the impact of anisotropy was shown at the individual lamina level and at the laminated structure level. Models for laminated structures were developed using an augmented Clas sical Laminated plate Theory incorporating induced stress terms to acc ommodate anisotropic actuator materials. A twist-extension coupled lam inate was used to exemplify how twist can be directly induced into iso tropic host structures using anisotropic actuation. Four anisotropic a ctuators with different material anisotropies were compared using this example. Finally, a laminate incorporating piezoelectric fiber compos ite actuators was manufactured and tested. Excellent agreement was fou nd between the predicted and experimental response.