Smart structures based on piezoceramics

Structures equipped with firmly attached piezoceramic actuators and sensors, which are connected by an automatic control system, represent most prominent members of the class of so-called smart structures. Various physical effects similar to piezoelectricity are under discussion also for actuation and sensing, but piezoceramic devices are on the leading edge, from both, their versatility and applicability. These devices represent an important current topic of interest in Mechatronics, since electrical and mechanical fields are involved in an interdisciplinary manner, and since the efficiency of piezoceramic materials has increased dramatically in the last years. The present paper gives a review on the research on smart structures based on piezoceramics, which has been performed at the Institute of Technical Mechanics of the Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria, during the last twenty years. Particularly, own contributions in the following fields are reviewed subsequently: Accurate electromechanically coupled structural modeling; dynamic shape control by piezoelectric actuation and sensing; sensor networks for measuring structural behaviour and damage. The present paper represents a condensed version of the reviews [1] and [2], however including more recent works also.