Analysis of distributed thermopiezoelectric sensors and actuators inadvanced intelligent structures

The quasistatic equations of piezoelectricity and thermopiezoelectricity are used to develop a finite element formulation of distributed piezoelectric and thermopiezoelectric media. The formulation is then integrated with the distributed sensing and control of advanced intelligent structure design. The procedure is illustrated with the help of two example problems. The purpose of the first example, which consists of two piezoelectric layers used as a bimorph robotic finger, is to check the accuracy of the finite element solution with the analytical one. As a second example, an aluminum beam is utilized along with two polyvinylidene fluoride layers acting as distributed actuator and sensor to study the distributed control of the beam when thermal effects are present. It is concluded that the thermal effects are important in the precision distributed control of intelligent structures.