MODELLING OF PIEZOCERAMIC PATCHES FOR ACTUATOR PLACEMENT STRATEGIES

Abstract

Piezoceramic Patches are commonly used as actuator devices in smart structures if the induced forces are sufficient for the application. To model these devices in a structural dynamics simulation, a finite element model can be augmented by active layers. This needs a suitable element meshing, taking care of the actual shapes and positions of the active patches in use. If many different setups have to be evaluated, which is naturally the case for placement strategies for suitable actuator positions, this approach is quite cumbersome. To ease and speed up the augmentation of fixed finite element models with piezoceramic patches, so called modal correction methods have been successfully used in this context. These approximative methods avoid the remeshing and the reassembling of the underlying finite element model by adapting the modal description of the structural model with the mass, stiffness and electrical coupling effects of the applied patches. In this paper different aspects of this modelling approach are discussed especially for a tool chain to optimize patch locations in an ASAC simulation environment.