Application of a LIPCA for the Structural Vibration Suppression of a Flexible Beam with a Tip Mass: Experiments and Simulations

Although piezoelectric materials such as PZT have been widely used as actuators in the field of active vibration suppression, the use of bare PZT as an actuator may cause some drawbacks such as critical breaks in the installation process, short circuits in the host material and low fatigue performance. To alleviate these problems, we developed a new actuator called a lightweight piezocomposite actuator (LIPCA). The LIPCA has five layers: three glass-epoxy layers, a carbon-epoxy layer and a PZT layer. We implemented a LIPCA as an actuator to suppress the vibration of an aluminum cantilever beam with a tip mass. In our test, we used positive position feedback control algorithm. The filter frequency for this type of feedback should be tuned to the frequency of the target mode. The first four experimental natural frequencies of the aluminum cantilever beam agree well with the results of finite element analysis. The effectiveness of using a LIPCA as an actuator in active vibration suppression was investigated with respect to the time and frequency domains, and the experimental results show that LIPCAs can significantly reduce the amplitude of forced vibrations and the settling time of free vibrations