Proceedings ICCMS09, IIT Bombay, 1-5

December 2009
Cylindrical bending of piezoelectric plate using a refined
plate theory
Eshwar G. Pawar
Senior Lecturer, Department of Civil Engineering, MGMs College of Engineering and
Technology,
Navi Mumbai 410 209, email: eshwar.pawar@gmail.com
Piezoelectric materials shows change in shape and size when an electric charge is applied
and the converse effect is also exhibited. The mechanical loading in electroelastic materials
leads to electric polarization and change in electric field leads to mechanical deformation.
Modern adaptive structures utilize the sensitivity of piezoelectric materials to loading and
electric fields [1]. Piezoelectric layers are embedded in patches or in distributed layers. An
analytical formulation for cylindrical bending of piezoelectric plates, taking into account
shear deformation, is presented. The theory presented herein is built upon classical plate
theory [2]. This displacement based, refined shear deformation theory, is variationally
consistent. The theory obviates need of shear correction factor like other higher order shear
deformation theory. The number of unknown functions in the presented theory is only two,
as against three in case of first order shear deformation theories; but yet it takes into
account shear deformation effect. A rectangular mono-layered piezoelectric polymer
polyvinyledene fluoride (PVDF) plate under electrical potential and mechanical loading is
considered. Coupled plain strain formulation is used for investigating cylindrical bending of
the plate. The principle of virtual work is used for deriving governing differential equations
and associated consistent boundary conditions. Results are compared with available exact
solutions of coupled electro-elastic analysis of piezoelectric plates under cylindrical bending
[3, 4]. The objective of the present paper is to investigate the flexural behavior of
piezoelectric plate with coupled electro-elastic effect. The theoretical formulation of a
refined plate theory (RPT) for a piezoelectric plate based on certain kinematical and physical
assumptions is presented. The principle of virtual work will be used to obtain the governing
differential equations and the associated boundary Conditions. The plate under
consideration occupies in O x y - z Cartesian coordinate system the region:
0 < ; / 2 / 2 x a h z h < < <
. (1)
where x, y, z are Cartesian coordinates, a is the edge length in the x and length of plate in y
direction is infinite, and h is the thickness of the plate. The plate is made up of a
piezoelectric material with the principal material axes parallel to the x and y-axes in the
plane of plate. The two-dimensional problem (2D) is approximated as a one-dimensional
(1D) problem in cylindrical bending. A rectangular piezoelectric plate is shown in Fig. 1.
Figure 1. Geometry of piezoelectric plate simply supported on diaphragms.
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Proceedings ICCMS09, IIT Bombay, 1-5 December 2009
The assumptions [2] are made regarding the kinematics of the problem. The transverse
displacement whas two components as bending component
b
w and shear component
s
w .
Both the components are functions of coordinate x only for cylindrical bending.
( ) ( ) ( )
b s
w x w x w x +
(2)
Similarly, the inplane displacement u in x direction consists of two components. The bending
component
b
u is assumed analogous to displacement u given by classical plate theory (CPT)
and the shear component
s
u of displacement u is assumed such that in moments
y
M , and
xy
M there is no contribution from the components
s
u . The displacement field of the present
refined plate theory can be expressed as follows:
( )
3
1 5
,
4 3
b s
w w z z
u x z = z +h
x h h x
]

| ` | `

]


. , . ,
]
]

. (3)
( , ) ( ) ( )
b s
w x z w x w x +
.. (4)
where u is the inplane displacement components in the direction, and w is the transverse
displacement in the z direction. Electric potential function in piezoelectric medium is
modeled as a modified form of Lagrangian polynomial.
( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
3
0 1 3
1 5
,
4 3
z z
x z = x z x h x
h h

]
| ` | `
+ +
]

. , . ,
]
]
Normal and shear strains are obtained within the framework of linear theory of elasticity as
follows:
1
2
j
i
ij
j i
u
u
x x

| `

+



. ,
for , , , i j x y z
. (5)
The coupled electroelastic effect exhibits a coupled constitutive relations linear analyses.
The linear electroelastic constitutive relations are given as below [5, 6].
{ [ ] { [ ] { C = - e E
.. (6-a)
{ [ ] { [ ] {
T
D = e g E +
(6-b)
where , , , , , C e E D and
g
are stress vector, matrix of elastic constants, strain vector,
piezoelectric constant matrix, electric field intensity vector, electric displacement vector,
and dielectric constant matrix of the plate material. PVDF falls in group of rhombic system
and class 7 for which matrix [ ] e and [ ] g are given by [5, 6]. The variationally consistent
governing differential equations and boundary conditions for the plate under consideration
are obtained using principle of virtual work.
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Proceedings ICCMS09, IIT Bombay, 1-5
December 2009

( ) ,
i j ij
d q x y w d = 0



. (7)
A refined theory is developed for smart laminated plate under cylindrical bending. The main
objective of the analytical solution is to study the effect of electrical potential on
piezoelectric plates. Even though, the number of unknown functions in the presented theory
is only two, as against three in case of first order shear deformation theories; it takes into
account shear deformation effect. It is seen that present refined theory predicts results very
close to that of exact solution for smart unidirectional plates especially for transverse shear
stress and induced electric potential.
References
[1] Kant T, Shiyekar SM, 2008, Cylindrical bending of piezoelectric laminates with a higher
order shear and normal deformation theory, Computers and Structures, 86, 1594-1603.
[2] Shimpi RP, 2002, Refined Plate Theory and its Variants, AIAA Journal, 40 (1), 137-146.
[3] Ray MC, Rao KM, Samantha B, 1992, Exact analysis of coupled electroelastic behavior of
a piezoelectric plate under cylindrical bending, Computers and Structures, 45, 667-77.
[4] Heylinger P, Brooks S, 1996, Exact solutions for laminated piezoelectric plate in
cylindrical bending, ASME, J Applied Mechanics, 63, 901-10.
[5] Cady WG, 1946, Piezoelectricity, McGraw-Hill, New York.
[6] Tiersten HF, 1969, Linear piezoelectric plate vibrations, Plenum Press, New York.
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