Analysis of piezolaminated plates by the spline finite strip method

This paper deals with the development of a family of higher order B-spline finite strip models applied to the static and free vibration analysis of laminated plates, with arbitrary shape and lay-ups, loading and boundary conditions. The lamination scheme can be such that the embedded and/or surface bonded piezoelectric actuating and sensing layers are included. The structure is discretised in a specified number of strips, and the geometry and displacement components of each strip are represented by interpolating functions that are products of linear or cubic B-spline, and linear or quadratic Lagrange functions along the y and x orthonormal directions. The accuracy and relative performance of the proposed discrete models are compared and discussed among the developed and alternative models.