Prandtl's formulation for the Saint-Venant's torsion of homogeneous piezoelectric beams

The Saint-Venant torsional problem for homogeneous, monoclinic piezoelectric beams is formulated in terms of Prandtl's stress function and electric displacement potential function. The analytical approach presented in this paper generalizes the known formulation of Prandtl's solution which refers to homogeneous elastic beams. The Prandtl's stress function and electric displacement potential function satisfy the so called coupled Dirichlet problem (CDP) in the cross-sectional domain. A direct and a variational formulation are developed. Exact analytical solutions for solid elliptical cross-section and hollow circular cross-section and an approximate solution based on a variational formulation for thin-walled closed cross-section are presented. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.