Analysis of active damping in composite laminate cylindrical shells of revolution with skewed PVDF sensors/actuators

Active damping in a FRP composite cylindrical shell with collocated piezoel ectric sensors/actuators is studied. The electrode on the sensors/actuators are spatially shaped to reduce spillover between circumferential modes. A three noded, isoparametric, semianalytical finite element is developed and used to model the cylindrical shell. The element is based on a mixed piezoe lectric shell theory which makes a single layer assumption for the displace ments and a layerwise assumption for the electric potential. The effects of location of patch of collocated piezoelectric sensors/actuators, percentag e length of the shell covered with these patches, fiber angle of the lamina e in the composite laminate, stacking sequence of laminae in a laminate and skew angle of the sensor/actuator piezoelectric material, on the system da mping for various modes is studied. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All righ ts reserved.