The paper presents a general concept for the development of piezoelectric finite elements. Based on this concept a library of 1D, 2D and 3D elements as well as multilayered composite shell elements were developed and implemented in an existing finite element code. The options to simulate adaptive structures include both static and dynamic analysis. Several beam, plate and shell structures were investigated experimentally to verify the software and get more insight information about the behaviour of adaptive structures. Two examples of an adaptive beam structure and a plate structure are reported in the paper.
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