Shape control of piezolaminated thin-walled structures using nonlinear piezoelectric actuators

In the present paper a 2D-shell finite element model is proposed to carry out static analysis of piezolaminated composite shells by incorporating nonlinear constitutive relations in order to describe the electromechanical coupling under strong electric fields. The present shell element has 5 mechanical DOFs and 3 electrical DOFs per node. The developed composite piezolaminated shell element is employed to study the static behavior and shaping of spherical antenna reflector laminated with piezo-patches under both weak and strong electric fields. (© 2015 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)