<p style="text-align: justify">Multistable morphing structures have gained considerable attention over the past three decades due to their ability to work in various operating conditions efficiently. Unsymmetrical laminates, which yields two stable equilibrium shapes due to the residual thermal stresses, are widely investigated to produce multistable structures. Even though cured shapes of unsymmetrical laminates are promising candidates for the design of multistable structural components, they may not completely fulfil all the requirements of a continuous morphing structure requiring more than two stable states during the morphing action. As a solution to achieve multiple stable configurations (more than two), series-connected unsymmetrical laminates are used in the present analysis. Connecting different bistable laminates results in multiple stable configurations at the end of the curing process, which is often desired in continuous shape-changing applications. The shape transition between the generated stable shapes is known as snap-through, which is strongly nonlinear in nature. Understanding the dynamic nature of multistable laminates is highly important, especially if such structures are to be used for practical applications. Since morphing structures are subjected to complex loads in engineering applications, the large amplitude nonlinear vibrations are inevitable during the structural performance. This work aims to explore the dynamic characteristic of multistable continuous composite plates generated by connecting bistable laminates without any external fixing aids. The proposed numerical analysis is carried out within a commercially available finite element package, Abaqus. The effect of aspect ratios, laminate configurations, boundary conditions and actuation loads on the dynamic characteristic (natural frequencies and mode shapes) are reported from systematic parametric studies.</p>

Numerical Studies on the Dynamic Characteristics of Series-Connected Multistable Laminates

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/SMASIS/SMASIS2021/volume/85499

ASME 2021 Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems (SMASIS2021)

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