Active vibration control of flexible plate structure using smart material

Abstract

Vibration often is one of the limiting factors in the performance of many applications and various fields such as aerospace, automotive, submarines, robotic industries, and all mechanical structures. The conventional method of suppressing the vibration is by using passive damping which consists of mounting passive material on the structure. This, however, will lead to increasing the weight of the structure and hence decreasing its performance. This research is aimed to investigate the method of vibration suppression using active vibration control approaches for the flexible plate structure. Firstly, the vibration characteristic of the plate structure is investigated. This involved a parametric identification of the vibrational flexible plate system. The Recursive Least Square algorithm was used in this study to identify the dynamic behaviour of the flexible plate. Input and output vibration signals were acquired from the flexible plate test-rig using two accelerometers as the sensors and National Instruments Data Acquisition System. The two sensors detect the vibration response along the plate caused by the excitation of the primary source (excitation point). Then, the signals are processed by on-line identification technique using Recursive Least Square estimator. The parameters for the controller are generated using the dynamic model of the system obtained from the estimator. The controlled signal is later fed to the plate to generate a superimpose signal to eliminate the unwanted vibration via smart material actuator. Finally, the performance of the Active Vibration Control algorithm developed using Recursive Least Square estimator is evaluated, verified and validated. The result demonstrates the ability of the Active Vibration Control algorithm using Recursive Least Square estimator to suppress the vibration of the flexible plate structure.