Smart damping of laminated thin cylindrical panels using piezoelectric fiber reinforced composites

In this paper performance of a new piezoelectric fiber reinforced composite (PFRC) material has been investigated for active constrained layer damping (ACLD) of laminated thin simply supported composite cylindrical panels. The constraining layer of the ACLD treatment has been considered to be made of this PFRC material. A finite element model of smart composite panels integrated with the patches of such ACLD treatment has been developed to demonstrate the performance of these patches on enhancing the damping characteristics of thin cross-ply and angle-ply laminated composite cylindrical panels. Particular emphasis has been placed on studying the effect of variation of the piezoelectric fiber orientation in the constraining PFRC layer and the shallowness angle of the panels on the control authority of the patches.