Experimental study and numerical simulation of active vibration control of a highly flexible beam using piezoelectric intelligent material

Active vibration control of a flexible beam with piezoelectric pieces on the surface is investigated experimentally using the independent modal space control method, which is able to control the first three modes of the beam independently. A comparison between the responses of the beam before and after control indicates that the modal damping of the flexible beam is greatly improved and the effects of vibration suppression are very remarkable. The dynamic equation of the beam is deduced by Hamiltonʹs principles, and numerical simulation of the active vibration control of the first three modes of the beam is also conducted in this paper. The simulation results match the experimental results very well. Both the experimental and numerical results indicate that by using piezo-patches as actuators the independent mode control method is a very effective approach to realize vibration suppression, and has promising applications in the aerospace field.