Large Amplitude Flexural Vibration of the Orthotropic Composite Plate Embedded with Shape Memory Alloy Fibers

The free and forced vibration of large deformation composite plate embedded with shape memory alloy (SMA) fibers is investigated. A thermo-mechanical constitutive equation of SMA proposed by Brinson et al. is employed and the constitutive equations for evaluation of the properties of a hybrid SMA composite laminate are obtained. Based on the nonlinear theory of symmetrically laminated anisotropic plates, the governing equations of flexural vibration in terms of displacement and stress functions are derived. The Galerkin method has been used to convert the original partial differential equation into a nonlinear ordinary differential equation, which is then solved with harmonic balance method. The numerical results show that the relationship between nonlinear natural frequency ratio and temperature for the nonlinear plate has similar characteristics compared with that of the linear one, and the effects of temperature on forced response behavior during phase transformation from Martensite to Austenite are significant. The effects of the volume fraction of the SMA fiber, aspect ratio and free vibration amplitude on the dynamical behavior of the plate are also discussed.