Nonlinear modeling and preliminary stabilization results for a class of piezoelectric smart composite beams

Abstract: Existing smart composite piezoelectric beam models in the literature mostly ignore the electro-magnetic interactions and adopt the linear elasticity theory. However, these interactions substantially change the controllability and stabilizability at the high frequencies, and linear models fail to represent and predict the governing dynamics since mechanical nonlinearities are pronounced in certain applications such as energy harvesting. In this paper, first, a consistent variational approach is used by considering nonlinear elasticity theory to derive equations of motion for a single-layer piezoelectric beam with and without the electromagnetic interactions (fully dynamic and electrostatic). This modeling strategy is extended for the three-layer piezoelectric smart composites by adopting the two widely-accepted sandwich beam theories. For both single-layer and three-layer models, the resulting infinite dimensional equations of motion can be formulated in the state-space form. It is observed that the fully dynamic nonlinear models are unbounded boundary control systems (same in linear theory) ${\bf \dot y}(t)=(\mathcal A +\mathcal N) {\bf y} (t) + \mathcal B u(t)$, the electrostatic nonlinear models are unbounded bilinear control systems ${\bf \dot y}(t)=(\mathcal A +\mathcal N){\bf y} (t) + (\mathcal B_1+ \mathcal B_2 {\bf y}) u(t)$ in sharp contrast to the linear theory. Finally, we propose $\mathcal B^*-$type feedback controllers to stabilize the single piezoelectric beam models. The filtered semi-discrete Finite Difference approximations is adopted to illustrate the findings.