Analysis of transient responses in a laminated piezoelectric cylindrical shell

A hybrid numerical method is proposed for analysis of transient responses in a multilayered piezoelectric cylindrical shell. In the present method, the associated equations of the displacement field and the electro-potential field are developed using an analytical-numerical method. The piezoelectric cylindrical shell is discretized into layered annular elements along the wall thickness direction. The governing equations are determined by Hamilton's Principle considering the coupling between the elastic and electric field in each element. The modal analysis and Fourier transformation with respect to the spatial cylindrical polar coordinates in the direction of wave propagation are introduced to formulate the displacement field and electro-potential field in the wave-number domain. The results of transient responses at any location can be obtained by performing an inverse Fourier transformation. The transient responses of an actual piezoelectric cylindrical shell excited by a coupled electro- mechanical circular line load are investigated as a numerical example. The computational results demonstrate the efficiency of the present method. © 2010 Science China Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.