Sandwich Plates Actuated by a Kagome Planar Truss

Abstract

Kagome truss plates have properties that suggest they should be uniquely effective as an actuation plane for sandwich plates: a Kagome truss plate has in-plane isotropy, optimal stiffness and strength, and its truss members can be actuated with minimal internal resistance. In this paper, sandwich plates are studied that are comprised of one solid face sheet and one actuated Kagome face sheet joined by a pyramidal truss core. Various aspects of the actuation behavior of these plates are investigated, including internal resistance and strains resulting from actuation and efficiency of actuation. Single and double curvature actuation modes are investigated. Contact is made with analytic results for actuation modes with long wavelength.