The Natural Frequency of the Shape Memory Alloy Anti-Symmetric Angle-Ply Composite Plates Using Finite Element Method

Shape memory alloy (SMA) wires were embedded within laminated composite plates to take advantage of the shape memory effect (SME) property of the SMA. Active modal modification of SMAC plates was studied using the finite element method (FEM). A linear FEM formulation was developed based on the first order shear deformation theory. The effect of SMA was captured by adding the geometric stiffness matrix to the stiffness matrices of composite plates. Two methods of frequency improvements are considered here: The active property tuning (APT) and the active strain energy tuning (ASET) methods. The values of recovery stress for the ASET analysis were determined from Brinson’s model. The effects of several parameters on the natural frequencies of the SMAC plates were studied. It was found that the effect of SMA is similar for couples of frequency modes where frequencies of mode I and IV seems to have affected the most by SMA.