Vibration control in a composite box beam with piezoelectric actuators

Abstract

This work presents a theoretical and experimental investigation of vibration control of composite box beams using distributed, surface mounted piezoelectric (PZT) patches as actuators. The finite element modeling of the box beam is done by formulating a first-order shear deformable active composite thin walled beam element. The degrees of freedom at each node are axial, bending in spanwise and chordwise directions, corresponding shears and twist. The superconvergent element derived uses higher order interpolating polynomials obtained by solving electromechanically coupled static governing differential equations. The open loop response is validated with experimental and analytical results available in the current literature. A system equivalent reduction expansion process (SEREP) is implemented for reduced order modeling. Open and closed loop responses to electrical bending actuation are obtained both experimentally and analytically using state space modeling. A proportional-integral (PI) controller using acceleration feedback is implemented for control of vibration due to single-frequency excitations. Experimental and numerical results correlate very well in the above cases. Eigenstructure assignment through output feedback is designed for multimodal control of transient responses.