The effect of the nonlinear nature of through-thickness induced potential on the accuracy of the piezoelectric smart beam finite element applied to shear monomorphs is studied here. The piezoelectric beam element based on Equivalent Single Layer (ESL) Higher-order Shear Deformation Theory (HSDT) is used to model the shear monomorph. The through-thickness electric potential is considered to be sublayerwise linear. The results obtained using a linear through-thickness profile of electric potential i.e. single layer model and using a sufficient number of sublayers in the modelling of through-thickness potential i.e. sublayered model are compared. The ANSYS 2D refined simulation results are used as reference values to compare single layer and sublayered models. The comparison of numerical results in the sensor configuration shows that the actual profile of through-thickness potential is nonlinear due to the induced potential effect which substantially affects the accuracy of the finite element results.

Keywords: Finite element, Induced potential, Piezoelectric beam, Shear monomorph, Smart structures.