Active vibration control of conical shells using piezoelectric materials

Abstract

In this paper, the active vibration control of conical shells is studied using velocity feedback and linear quadratic regulator methods. Up to now, many researches on the active vibration control of beams, plates and cylindrical shells have been published, however, to our knowledge, few people have studied the active vibration control of conical shells. Normally, in the equation of motion of the conical shells, some coefficients are variables, which makes the equation of motion of the conical shells very complicated and difficult to solve analytically. In order to solve this problem, Hamilton’s principle with the assumed mode method is employed to derive the equation of motion of the complex electromechanical coupling system. This equation of motion for the conical shell and piezoelectric patch system can be easily solved and effectively used for the structural active vibration control. Based on the traditional theory of structural dynamics, this method is easy to understand and is verified by numerical simulations. The forced vibration responses of the conical shells with two piezoelectric patches are computed to study the active vibration control. The optimal design for the locations of the piezoelectric patches is also developed by the genetic algorithm. From the results it can be seen that the control gain has a significant effect on the vibration control of the conical shell, but the effect of the size of the piezoelectric patches on controlling the vibration amplitudes is not so obvious. The overall vibration of the conical shell can be effectively reduced by the velocity feedback control method. With the increase of the control gain, the active damping characteristics of the conical shell are improved. Moreover, the optimal placement scheme of the piezoelectric patches obtained by the genetic algorithm can significantly reduce the vibration amplitudes of the conical shell.