A Morphing Concept Based on Unsymmetric Composite Laminates and Piezoceramic MFC Actuators

Bi-stable unsymmetric composite laminates controlled with the piezoelectric MFC actuators are considered as a possible morphing structure. The use of piezoelectric actuators to effect snap-through behavior in bi-stable unsymmetric laminates is studied two ways. First, an experimental actuator-laminate structure is discussed along with efforts to model the shapes and behavior of the structure using the Rayleigh-Ritz technique. The modeling shows promise: the shapes were closely predicted, but the snap-through voltage was under predicted. In the second part of the paper, the capability to model actuator-laminate structures was expanded to include finite-element modeling using the finite-element package ABAQUS. Two finite-element models of simple problems were developed and compared with Rayleigh-Ritz solutions. Agreement between the finite-element and the Rayleigh-Ritz solutions was generally good: the predicted shapes were very similar, but the finite-element solutions were able to capture behavior not seen in the Rayleigh-Ritz solutions.