Distributed piezoelectric modal sensors for circular plates

In this note, we deal with finding the shape of distributed piezoelectric modal sensors for circular plates with polar symmetric boundary conditions. The problem is treated by an optimization approach, where a binary function is used to model the design variable: the polarization profile of the piezoelectric layer. The numerical procedure proposed here allows us to find polarization profiles which take on two values only, i.e. either positive or negative polarization, that isolate particular vibration modes in the frequency domain. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.