Control of geometrically nonlinear vibrations of skew laminated composite plates using skew or rectangular 1–3 piezoelectric patches

This paper deals with the analysis of active constrained layer damping (ACLD) of geometrically nonlinear transient vibrations of skew laminated composite plates using skew or rectangular patches of the ACLD treatment. The constraining layer of the patch of the ACLD treatment is composed of the vertically/obliquely reinforced 1–3 piezoelectric composite material. The Golla–Hughes–McTavish method has been used to model the constrained viscoelastic layer of the ACLD treatment in the time domain. A coupled electromechanical nonlinear three dimensional finite element model of skew laminated thin composite plates integrated with the skew or rectangular patches of ACLD treatment has been derived. The performance of the patches is investigated for different configurations of their placements on the top surface of the skew substrate plates. The analysis reveals that the ACLD treatment significantly improves the active damping characteristics of the skew laminated composite plates over the passive damping for suppressing their geometrically nonlinear transient vibrations. It is found that even though the substrate laminated plates are skew, a rectangular patch of the ACLD treatment located at the centre of the top surface of the substrate should be used for optimum damping of geometrically nonlinear vibrations of skew laminated composite plates irrespective of their skew angles and boundary conditions. The effects of piezoelectric fiber orientation angle and the skew angles of the substrate plates on the control authority of the ACLD patches have been emphatically investigated.