Modal Analysis for the Active Multi-Layer Beams by Using Spectrally Formulated Exact Eigenfunctions
Abstract In this paper, a modal analysis method (MAM) is introduced for the active multi-layer laminate beams. Two types of active multi-layer laminate beams are considered: the elastic-viscoelastic-piezoelectric three-layer beams and the elastic-piezoelectric two-layer beams. The dynamics of the multi-layer laminate beams are represented by a set of fully coupled equations of motion, derived by using Hamilton’s principle. The exact eigenfunctions are spectrally formulated and the orthogonality of eigenfunctions is derived in a closed form. The present MAM is evaluated through some numerical examples. It is shown that the dynamic characteristics obtained by the present MAM certainly converge to the exact ones obtained by SEM as the number of eigenfunctions superposed in MAM is increased. The modal analysis results are also compared with the results obtained by FEM.