International Journal of Aerospace and Lightweight Structures

doi: 10.3850/S2010428612000384

Bi-Stable Composite Laminates Induced by Vibration of Piezoelectric Film Actuators

Atsuhiko Senba, Tadashige Ikeda and Tetsuhiko Ueda Composite Engineering Research Center, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-8603, Japan.

ABSTRACT

The vibration of piezoelectric film actuator is empirically applied to induce the dynamic morphing of the bi-stable composite laminates for morphing structures. The excitation with the piezoelectric patch-type actuator induces the dynamic snap-through of unsymmetric composite laminates. Because the resonant frequency of each state of a bi-stable structure depends on the configuration of the laminates and the boundary conditions, the excitation at each resonant frequency can be employed to induce the snap-through event between the two stable states. The main advantage of such dynamic morphing is the fact that it can reduce the requested high voltage for the piezoelectric actuators. In order to show the feasibility of the proposed concept, we apply the macro fiber composite actuator to induce the dynamic snap-through event of a [0/90] unsymmetric laminates. As a result, it is clearly shown that the dynamic snap-through was induced by tuning the excitation frequency of the macro fiber composite.

Keywords: Snap-through, Bi-stable, Vibration, Piezoelectric Actuator.

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