Nonlinear oscillations of a plate with piezoceramic patches

Nonlinear oscillations of a thin, isotropic panel bearing piezoceramic patches are studied in this work. The thin panel, which is clamped along all four edges, forms one of the boundaries of an enclosure. Rigid walls form the other boundaries of the enclosure. The piezoceramic patches are located symmetrically on the top and bottom surfaces of the flexible panel. Nonlinear relationship between the free strain experienced by a piezoceramic patch and the applied electric field is considered along with panel nonlinear elasticity to derive the equations of motion of the plate-enclosure system. It is shown that a voltage input into a piezoceramic actuator pair results in both parametric and external excitations to the panel. For harmonic excitations, the features of the nonlinear responses obtained in the simulations show good agreement with related experimental results. It is seen that for the cases considered, the actuator nonlinearities have a stronger influence on the response than the panel nonlinear elasticity.