Final Examination

versity, 2007. Non-linear Shunting of Piezo-actuators for Vibration Suppression. Vibrations at a resonant frequency lead to catastrophic failure or at the very least, shorten the life span of the structure due to fatigue. These problems force engineers to implement damping tech-niques. Smart materials have been used over two decades to reduced vibration amplitudes. Recently, there has been much research and development on smart materials and structures. This work introduces an innovative approach for vibration suppression using passively shunted piezolectric materials. Initially linear circuit elements such as resistors, capacitors, and inductances, or building a non-linear circuit with different impedance designs were used. Instead of such ele-ments, a switched electromechanical shunt has been proposed as a method to suppress vibrations of mechanical structures. In this state switching technique, bonded piezoelectric elements are switched from open circuit to closed circuit depending on the voltage produced from the piezoelectric patch. This new shunt circuit utilizes diodes. Diodes are nonlinear circuit elements and vibration amplitude is reduced due to introduction of nonlinearity into the system. A physics-based electro-mechanical model is developed and validated against experimental re-sults. The smart plate consists of a rectangular aluminum plate modeled in cantilever configuratio