Smart Components for Structural Vibration Control

A vibration control strategy for multi-component structures has been developed in which the structural components are actively damped beam members. Each component element is smart in the sense that it is an active vibration control system which is autonomous of all other structural components. Distributed sensor and actuator transducers constructed from polyvinylidene fluoride (PVF2) are embedded in each beam element. Lyapunov´s direct method was used to develop a vibration control strategy for a generalized system consisting of an arbitrary number of smart beam members rigidly joined at a common boundary. The analysis leads to a smart component control law which guarantees stability to the global system. A universal spatial film distribution is proposed which has the potential of providing active damping to all components irrespective of boundary conditions. The control methodology was validated experimentally on a structure constructed from three rigidly joined autonomous smart components. Frequency response data for the first three modes demonstrate that the smart structure control strategy provides active damping simultaneously to multiple vibrational modes.