Reference is made to investigations by various authors dealing with piezoth
ermoelastic response of beams, plates, shells and adaptive structural syste
ms. The emphasis of this paper is, however, directed at solutions to invers
e problems considered by. the present authors during the past fe tv years.
A solution procedure based on displacement and electric potentials is revie
wed, and the determination of unknown thermal loadings inferred from prescr
ibed electric potential differences illustrated for a number of cases.