Nonlinear vibrations of a rotating thin-walled composite piezo-beam with circumferentially uniform stiffness (CUS)

A rotating system comprising a hub and a thin-walled laminate cantilever beam with embedded nonlinear piezoelectric layers is analysed in the paper. The reinforcing fibres set-up in composite material conforms to circumferentially uniform stiffness lamination scheme. This configuration exhibits the mutual bending couplings in two orthogonal planes. Nonlinear analytical model of a piezoelectric material embedded onto the beam walls is postulated by considering the higher-order constitutive relations with respect to electric field variable. Moreover, to properly model electromechanical structural behaviour, the full two-way coupling piezoelectric effect is considered. To this aim, the assumption of a spanwise electric field variation is postulated in the mathematical model of the structure. Based on previous authors’ research, the system of mutually coupled nonlinear equations of motion is formulated. In the numerical analysis the forced response of the system under zero and nonzero mean value harmonic torque excitation is considered. In particular, the influence of hub inertia, excitation amplitude and mean rotating speed on system dynamics is investigated. The results are presented in the form of appropriate frequency response plots and bifurcation diagrams.