Thickness vibrations of a piezo-semiconducting plate layer

Abstract The small thickness oscillations of a piezo-semiconducting planar layer of finite thickness including heat conduction effects are investigated. On the surfaces of the structure, certain (homogeneous) boundary conditions are prescribed. Basically, the excitation can be either a mechanical body force, a volume-distributed heat source or a prescribed charge production inside the slab. A linear description and the usual electrically quasistatic approximation are used, but no additional significant simplifications are introduced, i.e. a generalized theory of thermoelasticity and electrical conductivity effects are taken into consideration. Attention is focused on the vibrational response due to a deterministic excitation where, as an example, the thermo-piezoelectric oscillations under a midplane-concentrated heat source with two different time histories are examined in detail. Previously, the corresponding eigenvalue problem is solved; the modal characteristics are integral components computing the forced vibrations in engineering applications. The limiting case of an electrically non-conductive layer is also addressed.