Modeling of adaptive composites including debonding

Debonding of piezoelectric actuators for use in composite structures can result insignificant changes to the static and dynamic response. This important issue is studied in thecurrent work. The refined higher order theory for composite laminates with embeddedsurfacebonded piezoelectric sensors and actuators is extended to incorporate debonding of transducersby partitioning the laminate into debonded and nondebonded regions. The stress free boundaryconditions at the free surfaces are satisfied in the analytical formulation. Continuity conditionsbetween the debonded and the nondebonded regions, which are nontrivial for the higher ordertheory, are formulated and implemented using a penalty approach in the finite element model.The computational model is efficient and correlation with experimental results is very good.Numerical results are presented which indicate significant changes in the natural frequencies andmode shapes due to debonded transducers.