Synthetic impedance for implementation of piezoelectric shunt-damping circuits

Piezoelectric transducer (PZT) patches may be attached to structures to reduce vibration. The PZT patches essentially convert vibrational mechanical energy to electrical energy. The electrical energy can be dissipated via an electrical impedance. The authors introduce a method of implementing any arbitrary impedance, using a digital signal processor. The "synthetic impedance" is demonstrated on a resonant simply supported beam.