Hierarchical Layerwise Ritz Models for Vibration Analysis of Rectangular Piezolaminated Plates

This paper presents a hierarchical Ritz formulation for free vibration analysis of rectangular laminated plates with bonded and, or embedded piezoelectric layers. The aim is to provide a unified, accurate and versatile tool devoted to the design of active or passive piezoelectric damping technologies for both thin and thick plates in the low and medium-to-high frequency range. The Ritz method allows efficient models for different boundary conditions and arbitrary lamination layouts to be obtained. The accuracy of the model can be tailored by the adoption of variable-order fully layerwise or mixed equivalent-single-layer or layerwise kinematic models, which are capable of capturing the large variation of electro-mechanical properties along the thickness direction.