Large rotation FE transient analysis of piezolaminated thin-walled smart structures

A geometrically nonlinear large rotation shell theory is proposed for dynamic finite element (FE) analysis of piezoelectric integrated thin-walled smart structures. The large rotation theory, which has six independent kinematic parameters but expressed by five nodal degrees of freedom (DOFs), is based on first-order shear deformation (FOSD) hypothesis. The two-dimensional (2D) FE model is constructed using eight-node quadrilateral shell elements with five mechanical DOFs per node and one electrical DOF per piezoelectric material layer with linear constitutive equations. The linear and nonlinear dynamic responses are determined by the central difference algorithm (CDA) and the Newmark method. The results are compared with those obtained by simplified nonlinear theories, as well as those reported in the literature. It is shown that the present large rotation theory yields considerable improvement if the structures undergo large displacements and rotations.