Formulation of an adaptive sandwich beam

A new adaptive sandwich structure is constructed using the shear mode of piezoelectric materials. Governing equations for the proposed beam and its surface-mounted counterpart are derived based on the variational principle. Static solutions of a cantilever sandwich beam and its corresponding surface-mounted beam are obtained based on the derived general formulations. The theoretical formulations are verified by finite element analysis. Furthermore, stress distributions of the two types of adaptive beams are also theoretically investigated. It is shown that the sandwich construction offers many advantages over the conventional actuation structure.