Synthesizing knowledge acquired as a result of significant research and development over recent years, "Smart Structures" clearly illustrates why these structures are of such intense current interest. Gaudenzi offers valuable insight into both how they behave and how and at what cost they could be designed and produced for real life applications in cutting edge fields such as vibration control, shape morphing, structural health monitoring and energy transduction.

"Smart Structures" offers a basic and fundamental description of smart structures from the physical, mathematical and engineering viewpoint. It explains the basic physics relating to the behaviour of active materials, gives the mathematical background behind the phenomena, and provides tools for numerical simulation. It also offers an insight into considerations related to the manufacturing, assembly and integration of smart structures.

"Smart Structures" is divided into 5 sections: in the first part a definition of smart structures is proposed, the motivation for developing a smart structure presented and the basic physics of active materials such aspiezoelectrics, electrostrictives, magnetostrictives and shape memory alloys briefly recalled. A second part is devoted to the mathematical modelling of piezoelectric bodies. The third part discusses actuation and sensing mechanisms based on which the active part of a smart structure will produce "results" on the passive one. The fourth part deals with active composites at the micromechanical and macromechanical level, and the fifth part is devoted to applications of smart structures with examples taken from the aerospace field.

This introduction to smart structures will be useful both for structural and mechanical designers, and for students and researchers at graduate level or beyond. The diverse industries involved in this rapidly evolving field include aerospace, automotive and bioengineering.

Piezoelectric Aeroelastic Energy Harvesting explains the design and implementation of piezoelectric energy harvesting devices based on fluid-structure interaction. There is currently an increase in demand for low power electronic instruments in a range of settings, and recent advances have driven their energy consumption downwards. As a result, the possibility to extract energy from an operational environment is of growing significance to industry and academic research globally. This book solves problems related to the integration of smart structures with the aeroelastic system, addresses the importance of the aerodynamic model on accurate prediction of the performance of the energy harvester, describes the overall effect of the piezoelectric patch on the dynamics of the system, and explains different mechanisms for harvesting energy via fluid-structure interaction. This wealth of innovative technical information is supported by introductory chapters on piezoelectric materials, energy harvesting and circuits, and fluid structure interaction, opening this interdisciplinary topic up for readers with a range of backgrounds.