I am looking for ideas for the following. I want to design a flexible plate where I can control the bending of the plate. In particular, a 5”x2” plate will be used which can be bent with some attached mechanisms. The plate will be dragged in water so it should not buckle under water pressure itself, rather its buckling should be controllable. I know there are certain shape memory alloys which can do that when powered (may be some piezoelectric actuator can do this also, I am not sure). 

[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mtht6.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mtht6.jpg)

Can it be designed with some actuating mechanism like this below:
[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LRl1c.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LRl1c.jpg)

I would appreciate your comments and suggestion. Thanks
['https://engineering.stackexchange.com/questions/12861', 'https://engineering.stackexchange.com', 'https://engineering.stackexchange.com/users/9237/']
There are some works by professor Wiciak, where vibrations or noise are controlled by piezoelements. 
[Development of noise reduction panel using piezoelectric material](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212017316305503)
Piezomaterials can be used for active vibration control. 
Maybe you could apply this principle to this problem. How about bimetal? Can you use heat? Or cooling of predeformed shape?
Presumably you will also want a reasonably well defined curve. 

To create a smooth, repeatable and adjustable curve you will want to stay withinthe elastic limit of the the material you are using which will depend on the material itself and its thickness. Steel or a composite sheet would seem like reasonable candidates. 

This also puts a limit on the stiffness of the surface as the elastic deformation will be limited by the thickness of the plate. 

The profile you end up with can be calculated by beam deflection theory and will depend on where you apply loads, in what direction and how the ends of the plate are supported.

Probably the simplest solution is to support one end and apply a load at the other (much like your example mechanism). Although there are lots of potential permutations of load and support arrangements.