Damping of compression and shear piezoelectric accelerometers by electromechanical feedback

It is shown that the very pronounced resonance peak in the frequency entirely by a simple modification of existing accelerometers, providing them with an electrical sensor output as well as an electrical actuator input, and using a charge amplifier in a feedback path between the sensor output and the actuator input. Because a piezoelectric accelerometer is normally read out by a charge amplifier, no extra circuitry (expense) is necessary to provide this electromechanical feedback. It is shown that a maximally flat response (Butterworth) can be obtained with little peaking (approximately 2 dB) and excellent dynamic stability, which makes the acceleration usable up to its resonance frequency