Induced strain actuation of isotropic and anisotropic plates

Abstract

The development and experimental verification of the induced strain actuation of plate components of an intelligent structure is presented. Equations relating the actuation strains, created by induced strain actuators, to the strains induced in the actuator/substrate system are derived for isotropic and anisotropic plates. Plate strain energy relations are also developed. Several exact solutions are found for simple actuator/substrate systems, and a general procedure for solving the strain energy equations with a Rayleigh-Ritz procedure is formulated. Approximate Ritz solutions lead to both an understanding of the system design parameters, and to detailed models of cantilever plate systems. Simple test articles were used to verify the accuracy of the basic induced strain actuator/substrate system models, and cantilever plate test articles were built and tested to verify the ability of the models to predict the strains induced in systems with extensive stiffness coupling and complicated boundary conditions.