New approach to vibration control using piezo-ceramic elements

Many mechanical structures of mechatronic systems suffer from unwanted vibrations. The present paper concerns vibration control of a Euler- Bernoulli beam using piezo-ceramic actuators. The intention is to eliminate the steady state motion at a prescribed location in a continuous system like a beam under the influence of an external harmonic excitation. The method is known as nodal control. A new system set-up is introduced. The actuator is integrated in the structure's clamping. For this system a model based on continuum mechanics is derived. It is capable of characterizing the structure's dynamics, the coupling of piezo-ceramic actuators and gives a mathematical solution in a closed form for the needed parameters to shift the vibration node as desired. The solution considers various types of commercially available piezo-ceramic actuators. Furthermore an experiment is designed to validate the mathe matical model. The experiments are performed with a variety of metal beams with applied piezo-ceramic patch actuators. It is confirmed that the theory developed here produces accurate results. The model can serve as a vital tool for enhanced investigations on shape and vibration control of beam structures