Analysis and optimal design of smart skin structures for buckling and free vibration

Analysis and optimal design of the smart skin, i.e., the conformal load-bearing antenna structure for buckling and free vibration are studied. The smart skin is modeled as an asymmetric composite sandwich structure which consists of different materials. In order to act as antennas or radars, a dielectric layer is embedded on the middle surface of the sandwich structure. The formulation of the smart skin model is based on the first-order shear deformation plate theory, and numerical results are obtained by the finite element method using a four-node plate element with five degrees of freedom at each node. The buckling and vibration behaviors of the smart skin are investigated with the variation of the aspect ratio, Honeycomb core thickness, area of dielectric layer and fiber angle of face sheet. Furthermore, to maximize the buckling load and the natural frequency of the smart skin, the optimal design is performed using a simple genetic algorithm.