Experimental Study of Active Vibration Control of a Cantilever Beam

The modern technology demands the system to be light and reliable. However, with the conventional vibration control techniques it is difficult to keep the system light with all the damping mechanisms. This work deals with the Active Vibration Control (AVC) of cantilever beam using piezoelectric (PZT) transducers. Active control involves the use of sensors to sense the vibratory motion of the structure, a controller to generate a control signal and an amplifier to amplify the control signal and an actuator which exerts control force on the structure to reduce the vibrations. An experimental setup is made, consisting of the aluminum cantilever beam with the PZT patches mounted on both the sides of the beam. A proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller is designed to generate the required control signal. A high frequency switch mode power converter is designed to generate high voltage required for the actuator to produce the control force. Experiments are performed for the active control of vibration. It is observed that there is reduction in settling time. The experimental results are then verified by the simulation results obtained from MATLAB^©.