Active Vibration Control of a Smart Beam

This study presents an active vibration control technique applied to a smart beam. The smart beam consists of an aluminum beam modeled in cantilevered configuration with surface bonded piezoelectric (PZT) patches. The study uses ANSYS (v5.6) package program. The study first investigates the effects of element selection in finite element modeling. The effects of the piezoelectric patches on the resonance frequencies of the smart structure are also shown. The developed finite element model is reduced to a state-space form suitable for a controller design. The work then, by using this reduced model, presents the design of an active vibration controller which effectively suppresses the vibrations of the smart beam due to its first two flexural modes. The vibration suppression is achieved by the application of H ∞ controllers. The effectiveness of the technique in the modeling of the uncertainties is also presented