Estimation of piezoelastic and viscoelastic properties in laminated structures

An inverse method for material parameter estimation of elastic, piezoelectric and viscoelastic laminated plate structures is presented. The method uses a gradient based optimization technique in order to solve the inverse problem, through minimization of an error functional which expresses the difference between experimental free vibration data and corresponding numerical data produced by a finite element model. The complex modulus approach is used to model the viscoelastic material behavior, assuming hysteretic type damping. Applications that illustrate the influence of adhesive material interfaces and viscoelastic parameter identification are presented and a few simulated test cases aid the interpretation of results.